Copspeak: When Black Children Suddenly Become Juveniles
MARCH 19, 2018
ADAM JOHNSON AND JIM NAURECKAS
As FAIR has noted many times before (7/10/16, 1/30/18), one of the primary goals of “Copspeak”—broadly defined as the media internalizing police verbiage to sound Cool and Official—is to dehumanize those officers have detained, harassed or killed.
One popular iteration of Copspeak is when reporters refer to children or teenagers as “juveniles.” This works to criminalize and dehumanize a distinction—being a child—we would otherwise view in a sympathetic light, by using the dry, scientistic language of an anthropological study. “Police shoot fleeing juvenile” impacts us far less than “police shoot fleeing child” or “police shoot fleeing teenager,” which is why it’s the preferred term of the police, and thus police-aligned local reporters doing their best Copspeak impression.
. . .
For centuries, societies have made a distinction between crimes committed by children and adults, with an understanding that, developmentally, they have different notions of guilt and responsibility. Blurring this distinction with “juvenile” turns children into criminals, instead of what they are: children.
Often, the term “juvenile” is coupled with “male” to maximize the dehumanization. This works in conjunction with other elements of Copspeak (FAIR.org, 1/30/18): Instead of a “boy” or “teenager killed,” we have a “dead juvenile male” dying “after” an “officer-involved shooting.” The normal language of human interaction is replaced with Borg-like jargon: Chests become “torsos,” boys become “juvenile males” and—by design—humans become cadavers.
More:
https://fair.org/home/copspeak-when-black-children-suddenly-become-juveniles/
= new reply since forum marked as read
