INMATE: Look it up, folks

I am writing in response to Carol Parr, who attempted to rudely school Michael Murphy with his terminology in his My Turn column printed last Friday. She should have looked up those words she had a problem with before blasting a guest columnist.

The Oxford Dictionary defines an inmate as a person confined to an institution such as a prison or hospital. The word “prisoner” means any person currently in prison as a result of any requirement imposed by a court or otherwise that he be detained in legal custody.

I have worked in both a state prison and a state mental health facility as a teacher. I can assure you that convicted people who serve more than one year go to prison. Offenders with less than one year to serve go to jail. That is the only difference. Both groups are considered to be prisoners, or offenders, but also the more politically correct term, inmates, while locked away from society.

Twenty years ago, when I worked in the mental health facility, we updated the terminology of the people in our care from patients to clients. So, Carol Parr seems outdated and politically incorrect with every term she attempted to correct.

As long as I am up on my soapbox, I would like to suggest we all adopt the habit of using person first language when talking about people with any type of malaise. Instead of referring to someone as autistic or mentally ill, it is more correct to refer to them as a person with autism or a person with mental illness. Everyone is a person first and a diagnosis second. It’s a matter of respect.

SUZANNE HOLLAND, M.S.

Post Falls