Washington State Senator Rosa Franklin has proposed legislation that would discontinue use of terms that negatively identify children such as “at risk” and “free lunch recipients” and replace them with more positive terms such as “Children at Hope.”

Democratic State Sen. Rosa Franklin says negative labels are hurting kids’ chances for success and she’s not a bit concerned that people will be confused by her proposed rewrite of the 54 places in state law where words like “at risk” and “disadvantaged” are used. The bill has gotten a warm welcome among fellow lawmakers, state officials and advocacy groups.

“We really put too many negatives on our kids,” says Franklin, who is the state Senate’s president pro tem. “We need to come up with positive terms.”

Republican legislators have challenged the program on pragmatic grounds:

“It’s not the label, it’s the people who show up to help (children) that make the difference,” he says. “What helps is a smart, well structured program, that has funding and credibility.”

The use of such terms may not only be ineffective but risk harmful unintended consequences. Juvenile justice has a long and ignominious history with euphemisms. The harmful effects of labels were recognized by the founders of the juvenile courts. In the 19th century, legislation began referring to children convicted of crime as ‘juvenile delinquents’ to distinguish them from adult ‘criminals’ and to the proceedings to incarcerate them as ‘adjudications’ rather than criminal ‘trials.’ This unobjectionable and seemingly innocuous change in nomenclature, carrying with it the decision to treat the proceedings as civil adjudications rather than criminal trials, was intended to reduce the stigma of the terms and judicially mandate a rehabilitative mission. It’s most lasting effect was to strip children of the constitutional protections in criminal trials that they would otherwise enjoy. The future of children accused of criminal activity was often left almost wholly to the whim of juvenile judges. By 1967, in In re Gault, the mistake was apparent enough for the Supreme Court to intervene. The lewd phone call that would have cost an adult ‘criminal’ at most a $50 fine would have sent 15-year-old Jerry Gault into state custody at the Arizona Reformatory school until his 21st birthday - a 7-year sentence not mandated by any sentencing guideline or statute but all because he was called a ‘juvenile delinquent’ instead of a ‘criminal defendant.’

No obvious harm looms in Senator Franklin’s proposal and she is absolutely correct that labels matter. I’m ‘at hope’ that if adopted, unintended ‘at hopeful’ consequences will be the unfortunate legacy of the bill.

• State. Sen. Rosa Franklin, Labels can shape children – and our attitudes toward them, News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) (January 22, 2010)
• Donna Gordon Blankinship, Wash. lawmaker wants to banish negative language

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