Illinois Democrats are pushing a bill that would change how state laws and regulations refer to criminal offenders, with the proposal eliminating the use of the word “criminal” and replacing it with “justice-affected individuals.”
House Bill 4409 Make changes Adult Relocation Illinois, A program that helps inmates enter rehabilitation facilities and avoid prison time. The bill has come under fire for including a provision that would end the use of the word “offender” to describe criminals in the state’s legal code.
Democrats were forced to justify the ambiguity of the term.
For example, Sen. Robert Peters, a Democrat from Chicago, warned against “obsessing over” woke people’s wordplay.
“This is good public safety policy. I know I’m getting hung up on words, but I don’t want to forget to add the Department of Corrections to this bill,” Peters said. ClaimedAccording to WGN-TV.
Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, added that the change in language is intended to help offenders reintegrate into society.
“So labelling someone as a criminal for life doesn’t seem appropriate in a system that aims to fully reintegrate people into society,” Cassidy argued.
But the Republicans remaining in Congress Sneered Lawmakers have pushed back against those claims, ridiculing the terminology change and calling the ideas a drain on budgets and soft on crime, according to The Center Square.
“We keep changing what we call people who commit crimes over and over again, and each time we do that, each agency has to make that change on all of their paperwork,” said Republican state Sen. Terry Bryan. “Right now, the Department of Corrections is going through multiple changes, and it’s costing them thousands of dollars just to change the names. Why would we need a name change?”
Republican state Sen. Steve McClure added that the bill would only take away “accountability” from criminals and do a disservice to victims of crime.
“There seems to be a rush to remove all responsibility from those who commit crimes,” McClure said. “To get it right you have to own up to doing something wrong. To apologise to criminals – people who choose to commit crimes in order to harm people who didn’t choose to be victims of crime – is simply unbelievable.” Saidby Washington Examiner.
But Senator Peters denied claims that Democrats were downplaying the suffering of victims, arguing they were simply trying to treat offenders as “individuals” and were “not going to mess around with the word ‘victim'”.
Democrats have had complete control of power in Illinois since 2003 and currently control all statewide offices with a supermajority, so the bill passed easily and now awaits the signature of left-leaning Governor JB Pritzker.
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