Mar 18, 2022 | Resources

Terminology Guide

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Understanding how the criminal justice system works can be tough to understand. This is especially true when reading materials and sifting through industry jargon and acronyms. As a society, we also carry cultural definitions when trying to understand the inner workings of the criminal justice system that can mislead us into missing the full context.

This terminology guide is intended to be a resource for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of the criminal justice system and the terms often used. It is also meant to be a guide for a more human-centric lexicon amongst society and how we refer to and should refer to folks who are system-impacted.

Definitions in this guide are a collection of industry definitions and originally coined terms. Direct terms and definitions from other sources are cited. Frequent this resource often as we will keep this guide up-to-date with the latest definitions and terminology.

Human-Centric Language

System-impacted – includes those who have been incarcerated, those with arrests/convictions but no incarceration, and those who have been directly impacted by a loved one being incarcerated. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Justice-involved – includes those who have been incarcerated or detained in a prison, immigration detention center, local jail, juvenile detention center, or any other carceral setting, those who have been convicted but not incarcerated, those who have been charged but not convicted, and those who have been arrested. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Incarcerated person – refers to anyone currently incarcerated. It makes no claim about guilt or innocence (contrary to words like “convict”), nor does it attach a permanent identity to an often temporary status (like “prisoner” etc.) (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Formerly incarcerated person – refers to anyone who has been in a carceral setting and is now released. Prison, immigration detention centers, local jails, juvenile detention centers, etc. are included under this umbrella term. Attaching the prefix ex- to anything (ex-convict, ex-felon, etc.) is a clear indication that it, and the root word itself, are unacceptable. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

People Convicted of (Drug Violations/Violent Offenses/etc.) – calling people “violent offenders”, “drug offenders” etc. continues to reduce one’s identity to a particular type of conviction. It is rarely necessary to specify the type of crime an incarcerated or formerly incarcerated person was convicted of, however, when doing so, it should be phrased in line with this guidance. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Offense history* – means records and data collected by criminal justice agencies or persons consisting of identifiable descriptions and notations of arrests, detentions, indictments, information, or other formal charges and any deposition arising therefrom. Dropping the use of “criminal” allows for a more well-rounded use of the term and does not make the claim of guilt or innocence. (US Legal, 2022)

Person on Parole/Probation – instead of “parolee” or “probationer.” It is about articulating the person first, not whatever temporary or circumstantial qualifiers may be perceived. Be mindful to preserve the privacy of those who may be on probation or parole. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Undocumented People – refers to people who are engaged in the asylum, DACA, etc. process but it is not complete to the point of providing guaranteed citizenship. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Sexual Assault Survivor – opposed to “victim” refers to anyone who has experienced molestation, rape, sexual assault, etc. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Sex Trafficking Survivors – sexual assault survivors, with the added trauma of being kidnapped and exploited for the economic gain of others. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Communities that Experience High Rates of Violence – is preferable to “violent communities” or “bad/disadvantaged neighborhoods.” Labeling a community as “violent” demonizes all people within it. It places the burden of such a disparaging label on the community itself without highlighting the systemic factors that are necessary for a community to repeatedly experience such trauma. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Drug/Substance Use – is more accurate than “abuse”. One does not abuse heroin, meth, alcohol etc., they use it to feel the anticipated effects of the substance. To misidentify users as abusers is a continuation of the strategic propaganda employed to dehumanize and vilify particular populations who use drugs. Drug and substance use among marginalized people is often a means of self-medicating for folks who are denied meaningful access to local, culturally competent, and affordable mental health services by the same systems that perpetuate the abuse from which we seek relief. People who are abused cannot then be called abusers for a private, personal attempt at self-preservation. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Woman vs. Female – where appropriate, we replace the use of female with woman. “Female” signifies a biological definition, where “woman” recognizes the whole person and represents gender identity opposed to biological sex. (Sturgis et al., 2022)

Industry Terminology

Carceral System* – is far more accurate than the ubiquitous term “Criminal Justice System.” Not all who violate the law (commit a crime) are exposed to this system and justice is a relative term that most people in this country do not positively associate with our current model. In this context, Carceral System is best understood as a comprehensive network of systems that rely, at least in part, on the exercise of state-sanctioned physical, emotional, spatial, economic, and political violence to preserve the interests of the state. This includes formal institutions such as law enforcement and the courts, surveillance, and data mining technology, NGO / non-profit consultants, conservative criminologists, those who manifest and/or financially benefit from modern slave labor, corporate predation on incarcerated people and our communities, the counterinsurgency in communities of color through ‘soft-policing’, etc. (Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System, 2022)

Trauma-informed – information we need to know to avoid re-traumatizing or inadvertently recreating some conditions of a person’s previous trauma, causing them to relive it in the moment.

Trauma-responsive – implementing our knowledge about trauma and incorporating its five principles: safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment into the makeup of the organization’s, programs, processes, and policies.

Trauma-specific – developing services that are trauma-responsive, specifically for individuals who have experienced some form of trauma.

Gender-responsive – an understanding of the differences in characteristics and life experiences that women and men bring to the criminal justice system, and adjusting strategies and practices in ways that appropriately respond to those conditions.

State/Public prison – a prison operated and maintained by a state and used to confine and rehabilitate criminals. In most cases, the state prison is funded by state tax money. (US Legal, 2022)

Private prison – a prison ran by private, third-party companies rather than the state government. Private prisons receive their funding from government contracts and many of these contracts are based on the total number of inmates and their average length of time served. This means that the more inmates these prisons can hold – with longer sentences – the more money they earn. The private companies of today that run prison facilities for the federal government house 8% of the US prison population, which is rising. (Private Prisons vs. Public Prisons, 2022)

County/Local jail – a facility operated by a county, municipality, or combination of such local governments or by a private independent contractor pursuant to an agreement with a county, municipality, or combination of such local governments and used for the confinement of persons charged with or convicted of violation of a law or ordinance.

Intensive case management – derived from approaches used by mental health professionals, it is the act of addressing multiple needs of a single participant by creating action plans for each need at the same time.

Community supervision – a set of programs that provide for the supervision of individuals convicted of crimes in their local community versus placing them in a secure correctional facility. The two most common types of community supervision are probation and parole. (What is Community Supervision – Charles Koch Institute, 2019)

Probation – a program that occurs post-sentencing as a substitute to incarceration. At sentencing, judges will generally have the discretion to choose the length of time the defendant must serve on probation and choose the conditions of their supervision. Probation can be designated as either active or inactive supervision. Active supervision will involve regular reporting to a probation officer as well as more severe conditions of supervision. (What is Community Supervision – Charles Koch Institute, 2019)

Parole – a type of supervision program that occurs after someone has been incarcerated and conditionally released from prison to serve the remainder of their sentence under community supervision. This release can occur because of a parole board decision or a statute requiring such release. Those placed on parole can also be classified as active or inactive based on their underlying criminal conviction and record of compliance with parole conditions. (What is Community Supervision – Charles Koch Institute, 2019)

Intersectionality - the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups (Merriam-Webster, 2022)

Bibliography

University of California, Berkeley, 2022. Language Guide for Communicating About Those Involved in the Carceral System. [online] Available at: <https://docs.google.com/document/d/10_XWnlhfftDma3GoWmn5A_iE0bU0TYnkjRVu9_FT6eE/edit?usp=sharing> [Accessed 16 March 2022].
Sturgis, I., Shahab, M., Lynch, M., Caudill, J. and Pfohl, P., 2022. Stop Using “Female” When You Mean “Woman”. [online] Golin. Available at:<https://golin.com/2021/03/31/stop-using-female-when-you-mean-woman/#:~:text=Essentially%2C%20%E2%80%9Cfemale%E2%80%9D%20connotes%20a,emphasizes%20gender%20over%20biological%20sex.> [Accessed 16 March 2022].
Lsac.org. 2022. Justice-Impacted Individuals in the Pipeline: A National Exploration of Law School Policies and Practices | The Law School Admission Council. [online] Available at: <https://www.lsac.org/data-research/research/justice-impacted-individuals-pipeline-national-exploration-law-school#:~:text=Justice%2Dimpacted%20individuals%20include%20those,and%20those%20who%20have%20been> [Accessed 18 March 2022].
US Legal, I., 2022. Criminal History Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.. [online] Definitions.uslegal.com. Available at: <https://definitions.uslegal.com/c/criminal-history/#:~:text=Criminal%20history%20means%20a%20record,found%20criminally%20liable%20and%20convicted.> [Accessed 18 March 2022].
Merriam-Webster. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intersectionality> [Accessed 18 March 2022].
Criminal Justice Programs. 2022. Private Prisons vs. Public Prisons. [online] Available at: <https://www.criminaljusticeprograms.com/articles/private-prisons-vs-public-prisons/> [Accessed 18 March 2022].
Charles Koch Institute. 2019. What is Community Supervision – Charles Koch Institute. [online] Available at: <https://charleskochinstitute.org/stories/what-is-community-supervision/#:~:text=Community%20supervision%2C%20or%20community%20corrections,supervision%20are%20probation%20and%20parole.> [Accessed 18 March 2022].

*Because this is not a commonly known or used term. Her Blank Canvas doesn’t use this term widely, given our goal is to educate audiences not familiar with the inner workings of the criminal justice system.

Terminology Guide

Human-Centric Language

Industry Terminology

Bibliography

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