Sanity outbreak! Jail guards told to stop calling inmates ‘clients’
PRISON guards will be banned from describing criminals as ‘clients’ in a war on woke language behind bars.
Ministers want to stop officers using ‘wishy-washy, politically correct’ phrases such as ‘residents’, which suggest inmates enjoy a comfortable life in their prison ‘rooms’.
Under a new style guide being issued today, prison and probation staff have been ordered not to use the terms ‘resident’, ‘client’ or ‘service-user’ to refer to a criminal.
Instead, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab wants to call them ‘prisoners, people in prison or offenders’.
The ‘style guide for prison communications’ unveiled at a meeting with senior prison and probation figures last night suggests released convicts should be referred to as ‘exoffenders’ or ‘prison leavers’.
But staff can use a vaguer term for those let out on licence – ‘people resettling in the community’. The guide also says prison ‘cells’ should never be called ‘rooms’.
Mr Raab ordered a blitz on political correctness after concerns that the ‘wishy-washy’ terms have become widely used and were damaging confidence in the justice system.
In a speech last year, Jo Farrar, chief executive of the Prison and Probation Service, said: ‘All prison governors will be given funding to spend on incell activities and extra technology to help our incredible staff support residents.’
Guidance at Wandsworth prison in south-west London says: ‘Residents have phones in their rooms and are able to make outgoing calls.’
The move away from referring to inmates as prisoners was part of efforts to avoid labelling people as offenders in the belief that it will help their rehabilitation. But prison officers have voiced alarm at the language, saying it sends mixed messages.
Solicitor General Alex Chalk insisted last May that staff must not ‘pretend that these people are angels residing in a cell out of choice’. But he stopped short of calling for a formal ban on specific terms.
Andrea Albutt, president of the Prison Governors Association, said: ‘The word prisoner is inoffensive, it refers to everyone who’s in prison – whether they are on remand and unconvicted or convicted.
‘It doesn’t really matter what crime they may have committed – they are a prisoner. We’ve had residents, we’ve had clients, we’ve had service users – all sorts. It muddies the water.’
A government source said: ‘The Justice Secretary is determined that our prisons up their game in rehabilitating prisoners to drive down re-offending, cut crime and protect the public.
‘But wishy-washy, politically correct phrases like “room” or “client” dent public confidence in our ability both to reform and to punish those who have broken the law and caused harm to others. The Justice Secretary believes in calling a prisoner a prisoner.’
‘Wishy-washy phrases’