Table of Contents
Part I: The Blind Spot of an Expert
Introduction: The Day My Research Failed
I remember the weight of the silence.
It was heavier than any statistic, more damning than any peer review.
I was a sociologist, a specialist in carceral studies, standing in a community center basement under the flat, unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights.
My audience was a small outreach group dedicated to supporting people re-entering society after incarceration.
My presentation was the culmination of two years of work: a rigorous, data-driven analysis of recidivism patterns, filled with regression models and p-values.
I was proud of its clinical precision.
And throughout my talk, I used the term I had been trained to use, the term I saw in every legal statute and government report: “inmate”.1
I expected questions about my methodology, perhaps a debate on policy implications.
Instead, I was met with a wall of quiet hostility.
The air grew thick with unspoken objections.
Finally, a man in the back row, his face etched with a weariness I couldn’t possibly comprehend, broke the silence.
He didn’t challenge my data.
He challenged my premise.
“We’re not your ‘inmates,'” he said, his voice low but carrying the force of a verdict.
“We’re people.
How can you study us if you don’t even see us?”.3
In that moment, my two years of research crumbled.
My charts and graphs, my carefully constructed arguments—they were meaningless.
I had walked in as an expert, armed with what I believed was objective, neutral language.
I left with the stinging realization that my words were not neutral at all.
They were a barrier.
They were, in the eyes of the very people I sought to understand, an extension of the system that had confined them.
That day, my biggest pain point was not a flawed dataset, but a flawed understanding of humanity.
I had followed all the standard academic advice, yet I had failed to achieve the most basic outcome: connection.
This humiliating failure forced me to question everything I thought I knew and sent me on a journey to understand the profound, explosive power packed into the distinction between two seemingly interchangeable words: inmate and prisoner.
In a Nutshell: The Core of the Conflict
At first glance, the difference between “inmate” and “prisoner” appears to be a simple matter of semantics, a choice between synonyms.
Digging deeper reveals clear lexical and legal distinctions.
Yet, the true, operative difference is not found in a dictionary or a law book.
It is social, cultural, and intensely political.
The choice of word is a signal of one’s position relative to the carceral system, a reflection of a deep and often brutal power imbalance.
It is the language of a modern struggle for humanization, pitting the sterile, administrative labels of the state against the lived, often painful, reality of the people being labeled.3
Understanding this conflict is to understand that when we talk about people who are incarcerated, the words we choose are never just words; they are an act of definition, and in some cases, of defiance.
My failure in that community center was not a simple mistake in vocabulary.
It was a collision between two fundamentally different ways of seeing the world, two discourses that operate on separate planes: the discourse of the state and the discourse of lived experience.
The state, in its legal and administrative capacity, requires a language of categorization.
Terms like “inmate” are useful because they are broad, clinical, and strip away individuality for the sake of efficient management.1
This language aims for a kind of neutrality that, in practice, functions by erasing the person.
In stark contrast, the discourse of lived experience—the language spoken and felt by those inside the system—is one of identity, resistance, and the fierce preservation of humanity.
My academic training had taught me to speak the language of the state, believing it to be objective.
But to my audience, my use of “inmate” was not heard as a neutral descriptor.
It was heard as an act of alignment with the system that had oppressed them.
They didn’t see a sociologist presenting data; they saw another agent of the carceral state, using the state’s language to categorize and “other” them.
The hostile reaction was not a rejection of my research, but a rejection of my perceived allegiance.
Part II: The Unraveling: A World of Unwritten Codes
To understand my failure, I had to abandon my complex models and go back to the basics: the words themselves.
My journey began in the comfort of my own world—the world of text and data—by meticulously deconstructing the official definitions I had so confidently, and so wrongly, relied upon.
Deconstructing the Dictionary and the Law
The history of these words reveals a divergence.
The term “inmate” is surprisingly domestic in its origins.
It derives from “in” and “mate” (a companion or friend), and in the 16th century, it simply meant a lodger or someone dwelling in a house with others.7
It was a term of cohabitation.
Only in the 1830s did its meaning shift to describe someone confined to an institution, be it a hospital or a prison.7
“Prisoner,” on the other hand, has always been directly linked to captivity.
It entered English from Old French (“prisonnier”) and has never strayed from its core meaning of a person held against their will.9
This etymological split is the first clue: “inmate” became institutional by association, while “prisoner” was carceral from its inception.
This distinction is amplified in the legal and administrative framework of the U.S. justice system.
Legally, “inmate” is an exceptionally broad and useful term for the state.
Federal statutes and regulations often define an “inmate” as any person incarcerated or detained in any facility, which can include local jails, federal prisons, and even mental health or immigration detention centers.2
It is the preferred term of administration because it is an all-encompassing bureaucratic label.
“Prisoner” is often used with more legal specificity.
While sometimes used interchangeably, it frequently refers to an individual who has been convicted of a crime and is serving a sentence, particularly in a state or federal prison.1
This distinction is critical when we consider the difference between jails and prisons.
Jails are typically local facilities for housing people serving short sentences (usually less than a year) and, crucially, for detaining individuals
before trial.15
In 2022, approximately two-thirds of the people held in U.S. jails had not been convicted of a crime; many were there simply because they could not afford bail.17
These individuals are legally innocent.
Prisons, by contrast, are long-term state or federal facilities for holding people who have been convicted and sentenced.15
Therefore, when the state uses the broad label “inmate” to describe everyone in a local jail, it is linguistically grouping the legally innocent with the convicted, erasing a fundamental distinction of justice.
Echoes in the Yard: The Social Hierarchy of Labels
If the legal definitions create a neat, if somewhat misleading, distinction, the social reality inside correctional facilities shatters it completely.
Here, the words are not neutral descriptors; they are charged with social meaning, functioning as an unwritten code that defines status, allegiance, and identity.
My investigation led me to analyses by federal criminal defense attorneys and the powerful firsthand accounts of former correctional officers, which painted a picture of a complex social ecosystem built on linguistic cues.5
Within this world, the term “inmate” is almost universally perceived as derogatory.
It is a weaponized word.
To call someone an “inmate” is to imply they are a “patsy” for the administration, someone who is subservient and does what they are told without question.5
In some facilities, like New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility, it is considered as offensive as calling someone a “snitch” or even a racial slur.
It can also carry a connotation of being sexually victimized or weak.18
A correctional officer might use the term to deliberately provoke or assert dominance, knowing it is a profound insult.18
“Prisoner,” conversely, is seen as a more neutral, even respectable, term.
It suggests a person who is simply “doing their time,” navigating the system without aligning with the administration or becoming entangled in the dangerous politics of the yard.
It denotes a certain resilience and self-containment—a person who is in prison but not of the prison administration.5
At the other end of the spectrum is “convict.” While it sounds harsh to outside ears, within the prison hierarchy, it can be a term of high respect.
A “convict” is someone who has done significant time, who understands the codes, and who has established their own agency and authority within the prison’s social world.
They are seen as tough, self-reliant, and not to be trifled with.5
This internal lexicon was a revelation.
I had been using the word my academic field considered neutral, but which the people I was studying considered the most offensive label possible.
I had, without realizing it, spoken the language of the guards, not the language of the men.
I had used a word that, in their world, was a tool of dehumanization and insult.
No wonder my data was irrelevant.
I had failed the first test of any ethnographer: I didn’t understand the language.
Table 1: A Comparative Analysis of Carceral Terminology
To fully grasp the chasm between the official world and the lived world, it is helpful to visualize these competing definitions side-by-side.
The following table synthesizes the lexical, legal, social, and modern advocacy perspectives on these key terms.
| Term | Primary Legal/Official Definition | Historical/Etymological Root | Social Connotation (Inside Prison) | Modern Best Practice (Advocacy/Media) |
| Inmate | A person confined to an institution (prison, jail, hospital). Broad and official. 1 | From “in” + “mate” (companion/dweller), originally meaning a lodger. 7 | Often highly negative; implies subservience, being a “snitch,” or a tool of the administration. 5 | Avoid. Considered dehumanizing and imprecise. 3 |
| Prisoner | An individual confined in a correctional facility, often post-conviction for a longer sentence. 12 | From Old French “prisonnier,” related to the act of being held captive. 9 | More neutral or even positive than “inmate.” Can imply resilience or refusal to submit to the system. 5 | Used cautiously, often as a less-fraught alternative to “inmate,” but person-first language is preferred. 6 |
| Convict | A person found guilty of a crime and serving a sentence. 7 | From Latin “convincere” (to convict). | Can imply a “tough” or respected status, someone who runs their own life within the prison. 5 | Avoid. Defines a person by their past crime. 3 |
| Person-First | N/A (Not a legal term) | Originates in the 1980s disability rights movement. 20 | N/A (An external framework) | Recommended. Use “incarcerated person,” “person in prison,” “formerly incarcerated person,” etc. 3 |
Part III: The Epiphany from an Unexpected World
Stuck between the sterile language of the law and the charged language of the yard, I felt my old framework collapsing.
I needed a new way to see the problem.
The real turning point, the epiphany that would give me a new lens for my work, came not from criminology or sociology, but from the history of a seemingly unrelated struggle for human dignity: the Disability Rights Movement.
The Analogy That Changed Everything: Lessons from the Disability Rights Movement
In my search for answers, I stumbled upon the history of “Person-First Language” (PFL).
I learned that beginning in the 1970s and gaining momentum in the 1980s, disability rights advocates launched a conscious and deeply political battle to change how society talked about them.21
They fought to move away from objectifying, identity-defining labels like “the disabled,” “the handicapped,” “cripples,” or “the blind.” Instead, they championed a simple but revolutionary linguistic shift: always put the person first.25
The core principle of PFL is to state that a disability is something a person has, not something a person is.27
One should say “a person with a disability,” not “a disabled person.” This wasn’t about being polite; it was a radical act of reclaiming humanity from a medical or social label.
It forces the listener and speaker to confront the person before they confront the condition.
Reading this, the connection struck me like a physical blow.
The struggle to replace “the disabled” with “a person with a disability” was the
exact same struggle as the one to replace “an inmate” with “a person who is incarcerated.” Both “inmate” and “the disabled” function as totalizing labels.
They reduce a complex human being—a parent, a child, an artist, a worker—to a single, defining, and often stigmatizing characteristic: their status of confinement or their physical condition.
I finally understood.
The anger in that community center wasn’t just about one word; it was about this entire linguistic structure of dehumanization.
From “Patient” to “Person”: A Parallel Struggle for Dignity
To deepen my understanding of this new paradigm, I looked to another field where this linguistic battle has been fought: healthcare.
The very word “patient” has its roots in the Latin word patiens, which means “one who suffers”.29
The word itself implies passivity, of someone quietly bearing their illness and waiting for an expert to act upon them.
This etymology reflects a historical power dynamic in medicine where the doctor was the active agent and the patient was the passive recipient of care.
In recent decades, however, there has been a significant push to reframe this relationship.
Modern healthcare philosophy emphasizes seeing the individual not as a passive “patient” but as an active “person” with a disease—a partner in their own care who brings their own experiences, values, and goals to the table.30
As the great physician Sir William Osler famously said, “The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease”.31
This shift acknowledges that a person is more than their diagnosis.
This parallel struggle reinforced my epiphany with stunning clarity.
In any system—whether it’s medicine, disability services, or criminal justice—where a power imbalance exists, language becomes a key battleground.
The fight to move from “patient” to “person,” from “the disabled” to “person with a disability,” and from “inmate” to “person who is incarcerated” are all fronts in the same war: the war against the reduction of human beings to their circumstances.
This reframing provided me with a powerful new understanding.
The shift to Person-First Language is not merely a matter of being “nice” or “politically correct.” It is a deliberate political and social strategy—a technology of change—designed to fundamentally reframe public perception, challenge systemic power, and assert the agency and humanity of a marginalized group.
The disability rights movement did not just ask for kinder words; they used the demand for new language as part of a broader fight for tangible rights and legislation, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).23
By insisting on “person with a disability,” they cognitively forced society to see the person first, making it psychologically and politically harder to justify discrimination.
Similarly, the modern push by justice advocates for terms like “person who is incarcerated” is a sophisticated strategic maneuver.3
It is designed to disrupt the automatic, often subconscious, process of dehumanization that allows society to accept inhumane conditions and policies.
It forces us to confront the human being behind the prison wall before we confront their crime.
The argument over “inmate” vs. “prisoner” was not a semantic squabble after all.
It was a modern front in a long-standing civil rights battle, waged with the weapon of language, with the ultimate goal of changing not just words, but the power structures those words uphold.
Part IV: A New Lens on an Old Problem
Armed with the paradigm of Person-First Language, I could now re-examine the world of criminal justice with fresh eyes.
The pieces of the puzzle—the legal jargon, the prison slang, the media portrayals—started to fit together in a new and disturbing Way. I saw that the labels were not just descriptors; they were active agents in a process of social control with devastating, real-world consequences.
The Label as a Cage: How Words Become Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
My newfound perspective led me directly to a classic sociological concept I had studied for years but never fully applied in this context: Labeling Theory.
First articulated by sociologists like Frank Tannenbaum and Howard Becker, the theory posits that when society formally labels an individual as “deviant” or “criminal,” that label can become a “master status”—a single trait that overwhelms all others and defines the person in the eyes of the world.32
A person is no longer a father, a mechanic, or a neighbor; they are simply a “felon” or an “ex-con.”
This process is not just psychological; it has tangible consequences.
The label creates a stigma that blocks access to conventional opportunities.
A person with a criminal record faces immense barriers to finding employment, securing housing, and even getting an education.34
This social exclusion, this closing of legitimate pathways, often pushes the labeled individual toward the only people who will accept them: other individuals who have also been labeled as deviant.
This can lead to the internalization of the label, where the person begins to see themselves through society’s eyes and adjusts their behavior to fit the “criminal” role.36
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I now saw the direct line.
The process begins with the language of the state.
A person is arrested and enters a jail, where they are officially designated an “inmate.” If convicted, they become a “prisoner.” Upon release, they are an “ex-con.” Each step of the way, the system applies a label that reinforces a deviant identity and strips away their personhood.
The language itself becomes a cage, trapping individuals in a cycle of stigma and recidivism that is incredibly difficult to escape.
The journey from being called an “inmate” to fulfilling the role of a “criminal” is a tragic narrative written, in part, by the vocabulary of the justice system itself.
The Fourth Estate and the First Person: The Media’s Evolving Conscience
This paradigm shift is not just theoretical; it is actively reshaping how we talk about justice in the public square.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of journalism.
For decades, terms like “inmate,” “convict,” and “felon” were standard, considered succinct and neutral by reporters and editors.6
But a growing awareness of the power of these labels is forcing a change.
Influential, Pulitzer Prize-winning news organizations like The Marshall Project have been at the forefront of this evolution.
In 2021, they publicly announced a change to their style guide, stating they would no longer use “inmates” or “convicts,” opting instead for person-first constructions like “incarcerated people” or “people in prison”.6
They explained that through deep engagement with their readers, they came to understand that these labels are not neutral but are perceived as deeply dehumanizing.
In some prisons, they learned, calling someone an “inmate” is as inflammatory as a racial slur.6
This shift is going mainstream.
In 2024, The Associated Press (AP), whose stylebook is the “bible” for most American newsrooms, released a new chapter on criminal justice coverage.
It explicitly advises journalists to use person-first language whenever possible to describe someone who is incarcerated.39
Other style guides, like that of the Global Press Journal, have issued similar rules, stating, “People should be referred to as people as often as possible to prevent bias”.40
This evolution in the media is a powerful indicator that the principles of Person-First Language are moving from the realm of advocacy into the bedrock of responsible public discourse.
The Vanguard of Change: Advocacy and the Push for Humanizing Language
The driving force behind this change is not, of course, academics like me or journalists.
It is the tireless work of advocacy organizations, many founded and led by people who have themselves been impacted by the justice system.
Groups like the Vera Institute of Justice, The Fortune Society, and the #HALTsolitary Campaign have been instrumental in educating the public and policymakers about the importance of language.3
Their arguments are grounded not in abstract theory but in profound personal experience.
Jerome R.
Wright, a formerly incarcerated man and a statewide organizer for the #HALTsolitary Campaign, puts it bluntly: “The minute you are arrested, the language begins to be totally derogatory, debasing, and dehumanizing”.3
He argues that until society understands the power of these words, no real conversation about reform is possible.
The late Eddie Ellis, a pioneer of this movement, wrote a powerful open letter denouncing labels like “inmate” and “offender” as being “devoid of humanness,” identifying people as “things” rather than as people.42
He wrote of the psychological damage of these labels: “The worst part of repeatedly hearing your negative definition of me, is that I begin to believe it myself”.42
These voices from the front lines provide the most compelling evidence of all.
They transform the discussion from a debate about semantics into a moral imperative to restore dignity.
However, a crucial nuance emerged in my research.
While the shift to person-first language is a vital and necessary step, it is not a magic bullet.
Some research indicates that in correctional systems where staff have been mandated to use person-centered language, it has not automatically led to a change in the actual treatment people receive.43
This points to a critical “implementation gap.” As analysts at the Urban Institute have argued, “Person-first language is all talk—literally.
Systemic change is the walk”.44
They contend that true change requires coupling the new language with concrete actions: providing humane conditions, ensuring access to quality healthcare and education, and dismantling policies that perpetuate inequity.
This was a sobering but essential final piece of the puzzle.
A focus on language alone risks becoming a form of institutional virtue signaling, allowing a system to adopt a progressive vocabulary while maintaining its oppressive practices.
My final conclusion could not be a simplistic “use better words and everything will be fine.” The argument had to be more sophisticated.
Adopting humanizing language is the essential first step.
It is the key that unlocks the door to seeing people as fully human and thus as worthy of humane treatment and real opportunities for rehabilitation.
But after unlocking the door, you must have the courage to walk through it with substantive, systemic reform.
Part V: Conclusion – Beyond the Word
From Label to Name: A Personal and Professional Reckoning
My journey began with the shame of a failed presentation and ended with a complete reconstruction of my professional worldview.
The silence in that community center basement was not an ending, but a beginning.
It forced me to see the people I studied not as collections of data points to be labeled “inmates,” but as individuals with justice involvement, as people with names, histories, and a humanity that my clinical language had obscured.
This transformation has fundamentally changed how I conduct my work.
I no longer enter a room as an “expert” bestowing knowledge.
I enter as a student, ready to listen.
I have learned to prioritize the language preferred by the communities I engage with.
This shift has not weakened my research; it has made it immeasurably stronger.
By building trust and showing respect through the simple act of using humanizing language, I now have access to richer narratives, deeper truths, and more collaborative, meaningful insights.
My work is no longer just about a community; it is increasingly with a community.
The success I now find is not in the applause of an academic conference, but in the quiet nod of understanding from someone who feels seen and heard.
The distinction between “inmate” and “prisoner,” and the broader movement toward “person who is incarcerated,” is far more than a matter of political correctness.
It is a reflection of a fundamental choice we must make as a society.
Do we see people who have committed crimes as things to be managed, or as human beings to be restored? Do we use language that categorizes and controls, or language that recognizes complexity and potential for change?
Whether you are an academic, a journalist, a lawyer, a policymaker, or simply a citizen reading the news, you hold more power than you realize.
The words you choose to use matter.
They shape perceptions, influence policy, and either reinforce or dismantle the walls of stigma that prevent millions of our fellow human beings from successfully rejoining society.
Changing our language is the first, most accessible step any of us can take to challenge a dehumanizing system.
It is a small act with profound implications, a quiet insistence on the radical, unshakeable truth that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, is a person first.3
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