The Centers for Disease Control, not having anything more pressing on its plate (their plate? What are the CDC’s pronouns anyway?), advises:
Language in communication products should reflect and speak to the needs of people in the audience of focus. The following provides some preferred terms for select population groups; the terms to try to use represent an ongoing shift toward non-stigmatizing language.
Instead of this…
Inmate
Prisoner
Convict/ex-convict
Offender
Criminal
Parolee
Detainee
“Murderer” is so judgmental. Instead, use PoM (Person of Murder).
Try this…
People/persons who are incarcerated or detained (often used for shorter jail stays or youth in detention facilities)
Partner/child of an incarcerated person
Persons in pre-trial or with charge
People who were formerly incarcerated
Persons on parole or probation
Non-US citizens (or immigrants) in immigration detention facilities
People in immigration detention facilities
It’s interesting (in a tedious way) how the New Newspeak has evolved away from the Stalinist brusqueness of Orwell’s invention (e.g., “crimethink”) toward boring verbosity.
Some other formerly fashionable terms that have apparently recently climbed on the Euphemism Treadmill toward oblivion are:
Differently abled
Vulnerable
Persons who relapsed
Underserved people/communities/the underserved
Hard-to-reach populations
The uninsured
Homelessness
Homeless people/the homeless
Lower Socioeconomic Status (SES)
Poverty-stricken
Vulnerable population
Priority populations
Native American (for federal publications)
The Black community
Non-White
Transgenders/transgendered/transsexual
Stakeholder
