Incarcerated People Can No Longer Be Called ‘Inmate’ in New York

Did anyone catch this law that passed? You're not supposed to call them 'inmates' anymore because it's too dehumanizing.

New legislation has been put into place to help put a stop to the use of dehumanizing language when referring to people serving jail or prisons thought the Hudson Valley and New York State,

People serving time in a correctional facility have many of their rights taken away. They still have basic human rights because they are in fact still human beings.

The high population of people serving in prison to contract COVID-19 made many people rethink how they are treated while in a correctional facility. Now many are even thinking about how they are even addressed while locked up.

In the middle of all the political craziness taking place in the media during Andrew Cuomo's last few weeks in office it is very possible that you missed a new piece of legislation that passed in early August.

According to Governing, the bill was passed back in June but on August 2nd, former Governor Andrew Cuomo signed new legislation that would replace the term 'inmate' in prisons and jails in New York Sate.

So what do you call them now?

The proper term is now 'incarcerated individual' when referring to someone in the state's correctional system.

We should abandon terms like 'convict' and even 'inmate' because of the negative connotations they posses and negative stigmas associated with them

Not using derogatory terms has shown some positive trends in the correctional population.