#unlabelling

Regular readers of this blog will know that we have enjoyed a long-running conversation (at least from time to time) about language and labelling as it relates to desistance and reintegration. Indeed, we’ve expended a lot of energy and some brain power trying to come up with alternatives to terms like ‘offender’, ‘ex-offender’, ‘prisoner’ and ‘probationer’. Not everyone gets the point. As the terrifying Minister of the Interior says in ‘The Clockwork Orange’, ‘Words… mere words. Actions speak louder than!’. I guess he had a point, except that words reflects and shape attitudes, and attitudes reflect and shape actions.

So, I was delighted when Baillie Aaron contacted me about her recent TEDx talk ‘Once a thief, always a thief?’. Bailie is co-founder and Executive Director of Spark Inside, a UK charity supporting young people in custody through life coaching. She is also the founder of Venturing Out, a Massachusetts charity teaching entrepreneurship to men and women in prison. Both ventures seek to expose latent human potential, and adopt strength-based approaches toward empowering prisoners to achieve legitimate self-sufficiency on release.

You can find the talk here: Once a thief, always a thief?

It lasts about 10 minutes… and it’s worth investing the time!