“Justice-Impacted Individual” is Too Much for the Chicago Tribune

Also, these quibbles detract from common-sense criminal justice reforms with widespread popularity and bipartisan support.

Photo by Kalea Morgan on Unsplash.

“‘Justice-impacted individual’ is a ‘doublethink’ phrase that could come back to haunt Gov. J.B. Pritzker,” warned the Chicago Tribune editorial board last week.

“The gift-wrapped-for-Republicans language change appeared in House Bill 4409, which passed the Democratic-controlled Senate by a 34–20 vote Tuesday after having passed the similarly controlled House in April,” noted the Tribune.

“In the minds of those who support the language change, it is an attempt to remove the stigma of being referenced in law as an ‘offender,’ a word that can stick to a person even after they’ve changed their ways,” explained the Tribune. “In the minds of Republicans, and plenty of regular old Illinois Democrats, this was yet another example of the state going soft on crime by expressing a reluctance even to call a criminal a criminal.”

“Add that to Cook County’s now infamous reluctance to prosecute many relatively minor crimes and it feels like the state is suggesting that offenders can offend with impunity,” the editorial board fumed. “Simply put, justice-impacted individual sounds to us more like a description of someone who is the victim of a crime…