Be more respectful and call him or her "the person who stole my bicycle" rather than a "criminal" [View all]

[Liberal_in_LA]

Is it wrong to call someone who steals a "criminal"?

In a recent thread on NextDoor, a group of neighbors living in the Noe Valley-Glen Park area debated whether labeling a person who commits petty theft as a "criminal" is offensive.

In the site's Crime and Safety area, where residents share strategies for fighting crime, Malkia Cyril asked her Noe Valley neighbors to stop using the label because it shows lack of empathy and understanding.

Cyril suggested that instead of calling the thief who took the bicycle from your garage a criminal, you should be more respectful and call him or her "the person who stole my bicycle."

"I [suggest] that people who commit property crimes are human and deserved to be referred to in terms that acknowledge that," Cyril, who's the executive director of the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, writes in the thread



http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Political-correctness-San-Francisco-criminal-6598509.php