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Pamela Paul

By Pamela Paul

Opinion Columnist

If Donald Trump ends up serving a term in prison (there’s still hope!), I’d relish the chance to refer to him as an ex-con. Like “felon,” the brute force of the term, with its hard-boiled matter-of-factness, would be extremely satisfying.

But the very power of that label has made it practically taboo. In its place, even federal prosecutors have adopted phrases like “justice involved” or “justice impacted” to describe those convicted of crimes — as if we could reform the entire criminal justice system simply by using new words.

Much ado has been made of euphemism inflation, the ceaseless efforts to reform the English language toward desired social or political ends. The well-worn euphemism treadmill has fueled many a George Carlin bit, caused George Orwell to toss and turn feverishly in his grave and led even the most deeply sensitive among us to a grumpy grandpa “What are we supposed to call it now?” moment.

But while it’s easy to make fun of the changes, it’s worth digging deeper to examine the underlying logic of what can feel like — but rarely is — arbitrary new terminology.

Let’s return to the old “ex-con.” It’s a moniker that immediately conjures Robert Mitchum’s unrepentant villain in 1962’s “Cape Fear.” Even “former prisoner” and “formerly incarcerated person” have grown passé. But “justice involved” and “justice impacted” go further yet. They not only avoid stigma, they also remove the implication of responsibility altogether, as if the crime were something that........

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