Thread by @DrRJKavanagh

I tend to use the word cells not cages because I think the word itself dehumanizes, but there is no other word here to describe what this is.

https://twitter.com/MarieWaldron75/status/1373012369928982528

I feel very conflicted about words like "caged" and "bodies" because my first experience of them being used in the criminal legal system was by court and corrections officers.

In the courtroom, when a person who is incarcerated is being brought up from the holding cells, the court sergeant or even the judge will refer to the person as a "body," as in "another body coming up" or "can we bring up another body." It's completely dehumanizing.

The cells in the courthouse called "pens" by nearly everyone. Even court orders use the word "pens" - see below (I change mine to say holding cells).

I was representing someone on an assault of a corrections case in 2014. On the stand at trial, the corrections officer kept saying "cage" to refer to cell. I mentioned that in my closing, the prosecutor objected and the judge sustained.

(My client was acquitted or this could have been an appealable issue.)

I know context matters, it just feel strange to me to use the same terms the state uses to dehumanize people to show how they are being dehumanized.