DICTIONARY OF CRIME 2
The second bumper edition of our popular dictionary
A PSYCHOLOGIST’S DICTIONARY OF CRIME
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This is the second version of our dictionary, updated and twice as long as the first one. There are some great terms here. I hope you enjoy reading about them.
As ever, some of the language is a little blue, and reader discretion is advised. Please don’t read on if you are easily offended.
All terms are from the UK unless otherwise specified.
1L
First-year Law student.
419 scam
Fraud originating with the fax machine or even, sometimes, handwritten letters, but which became really successful in the internet age. An appeal comes, frequently, from Nigeria. It asks a Westerner to feed an African child, subsidise a church, or shelter some shady money. There are always advance fees to pay, escalating into absurdity. The biggest victim of the 419 scam was an actual bank, Brazil’s Noroeste.
A
Abactor
Shepherd or cowhand who connives in stealing the flock or herd he or she is employed to guard.
Above snakes
Old West term meaning ‘still alive’, i.e., not yet buried. You can find a big dictionary of Old West terms here.
Acid tests
Series of parties – better called ‘events’ – hosted by American author Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters (along with rock band The Grateful Dead) on the West Coast in 1965 and 66. These were essentially uncontrolled experiments in taking LSD to open up what the author Aldous Huxley had called ‘The Doors of Perception’. They caused concern to psychologists who were involved in researching the effects of the drug. Partly owing to the acid tests, LSD became a central feature of anti-war, peacenik, hippie subcultures of the late 60s. The acid tests remain famous today partly owing to Tom Wolfe’s book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, an example of The New Journalism. You can read more about their links to Psychology here.
Agitprop
Propaganda, especially Communist, in the form of ‘art’ of ‘literature’. The inverted commas are really necessary. ‘Agitator’ and ‘propagandist’ are apparently the same words in Russian.
All day
Life sentence. ‘All day and a night’ – life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Ambush
Excellent old-timey Western slang for scales used by crooked merchants. It refers to the way they ‘lie in weight’.
April
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘weapon’, by way of ‘April fool’ – ‘tool’.
Atavistic
Adj., relating to an earlier type, or ancestors who came before the parents. Used by the Italian criminal anthropologist, Cesare Lombroso, to explain ‘Criminal Man’.
B
Bacon head
Prison slang for paedophile.
Badgers
According to the New Universal English Dictionary of 1760, a ‘crew of desperate villains’ who threw the corpses of murder victims into a lake.
Bag
American term for police uniform.
Balsom
Flash term for money.
Banbury
Presumably named after the town in England, this flash term means to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger and travel together until such time as one recognises an opportunity to steal their luggage.
Bank Note Detectors
Books carried around by the wary on the American frontier. They listed all the ‘banks’ that issued money, telling you which ones were real, which were not, and which bank notes you ought to avoid. That tells you how common forgers and conmen were at that time.
Barnaby
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘judge’, by way of the Charles Dickens novel, Barnaby Rudge. As in ‘The Barnaby’s the geezer what’s got a syrup on his barnet’ – literally, ‘The judge is the gentleman with the wig atop his head’.
Baron Samedi
Perhaps the best known loa in voodoo. Baron Samedi is usually depicted dressed all in black, with a top hat, and sometimes dark glasses. Not infrequently, he has a skull for a face. Included here because he’s known as the father of the underworld, providing guidance in matters of life and death. He chooses who will live and who will die, and makes sure that the line between life and death is never crossed.
Barratry
Two meanings: i) The habit of continually starting new, irritating or vexatious, lawsuits. ii) Breach of duty by a ship’s crew or officers which results in physical injury or financial loss to its owner.
Bear-garden discourse
According to the New Universal English Dictionary of 1760, this used to mean common, nasty, filthy talk.
Beretta lobotomy
Shooting oneself in the head.
Beshrew
To curse, or attempt to bring down evil. In voodoo, crossing.
Bird
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘time’ in prison, by way of ‘bird lime’.
Blabagogy
Criminal environment.
Black hat
A ‘bad’ hacker, who gets unauthorised access to computer systems, presumably with ignoble intentions. Cf White hat
Black lady of espionage
Term used by Soviet intelligence agencies to refer to the CIA’s U2 spyplane.
Black strap
Sack dyed black so as to be more or less invisible at night, used by Light-Horsemen to carry sugar off Game-Ships.
Blind tiger
Illegal drinking establishment, or speakeasy, of the sort that flourished during American Prohibition.
Blue law
Law put in place in numerous Western countries to prevent immorality on Sundays. After all, only the very worst kind of people would want to spend their day off visiting friends or playing football. Blue laws were mostly put to an end with the UK’s Sunday Trading Act in 1994.
Blue wall of silence
Notorious police-department code. It means not ratting out one’s colleagues, even if they may deserve it.
Bluesnarf
Joining of the words ‘bluetooth’ and ‘snarf’ (meaning ‘steal’). It simply means to get data though some sort of unauthorised or illegal connection. Cf wardrive.
Bobby
Colloquial and rather affectionate name for police officers. The London Metropolitan Police was established by Sir Robert Peel, and the term derived from his name. See also Peeler.
BOLO
Policing term – Be On the LOokout.
Bootleg
Noun - contraband material, which has been illegally created, transported, or sold. Derives from smugglers’ habits of concealing bottles or flasks of liquor in the legs of their boots. Often used today in reference to music. Adj., as in ‘Would you care to try this bootleg whisky?’ Verb – to smuggle or otherwise deal in bootleg merchandise.
Bothan
Scots word derived from ‘bothy’, meaning a place where alcoholic beverages are drunk on which tax or excise duty has not been paid.
Bottomry
Term from maritime law – a ship and/or its cargo are used as collateral for a loan which will be used to finance the voyage.
Bridle-cull
Flash term for highwayman.
Bronx roll
When a car doesn’t quite stop at the Stop sign.
Brothel-creepers
Thick-soled shoes, often with suede uppers, at one time very popular with Teddy Boys. The term probably originated with Second World War soldiers fighting in North Africa. When adopted by Russian youths, brothel-creepers became known as ‘shoes on semolina’.
Buccaneer
English name for pirates who worked around the Caribbean in the Golden Age of Piracy, especially around Haiti and Tortuga. It’s a corruption of the French word boucanier, which simply means ‘someone who uses a barbecue’. What a disappointing etymology that is.
Buck 50
US gang and prison slang, meaning Glasgow smile. The wound needs 150 stitches, hence the name. To real-estate and Wall Street types, it means $150 000; to fast drivers, 150 miles per hour.
Bumboo
Tasty-sounding beverage made of rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg, ubiquitous in the West Indies of the 17th and 18th centuries – a favourite of freebooters.
Bumpology
Derisive term used by modern psychologists to refer to phrenology, a pseudo-science used for centuries in an attempt to identify criminals by the bumps on their heads (among other things).
Bunco
As a noun, confidence trick; as a verb, to engage in such a trick. Also spelt ‘bunko’.
Bundle the cull of the ken
Flash term meaning to tie up the man of the house by neck and heels.
Bush ranger
Australia’s answer to the knight of the high toby or footpad. The bush ranger generally worked on foot, rather than horseback, and was sometimes treated, in that nation of sterling rebels, as something of an example to be followed.
Buttock
Flash term for street-walker. ‘Buttock and file’ – a street-walker who is also a pickpocket.
C
Capo di Tutti Capi
‘Captain of all Captains’, or ‘Boss of all Bosses’: title belonging to the chief of all organised crime in the United States. Nominally, the title was retired by Lucky Luciano in 1931, and his role replaced by the Commission.
Case
Verb meaning to watch a place extensively before committing to a robbery. Mostly commonly used in phrases like ‘case the joint’, where the ‘joint’ in question is a jug. See also git.
Cat road
Minor road of the sort used by Jazz Age yeggs to make their getaways. They were used extensively by Herman K ‘The Baron’ Lamm, the expert bank robber who never stuck up a joint he hadn’t thoroughly cased.
Catchpole
Medieval English word for a sheriff’s deputy, whose job was to collect debts.
Chapbook
Small, cheaply-printed street publication, particularly common in the 17th and 18th centuries. Usually made of a single sheet of paper folded numerous times. Although all kinds of literature could be printed as chapbooks – from ballads to children’s stories - they were often lurid in content, and found a big audience at executions. Some give them partial credit for disseminating the legends of highwaymen, among other semi-romantic criminal types. Chapbooks were so-called because they were sold by chapmen – whom today we’d call travelling salesmen.
Chib
As a noun, a bladed weapon; or, verb, to use such a weapon on a victim. Glasgow slang.
Chicago typewriter
One of the more poetical terms invented during the era of Al Capone. Lawmen were using the Thompson semi-automatic, and so were bandits and mobsters. The term refers to the sound the gun made: the repetitious rattle of metal on metal.
Chokey
Prison, or a term of imprisonment.
Chomo
Child molester
Cigar-store battery
Shop set up in the southern parts of Manhattan during the nineteenth century. It did not really sell cigars, no matter what your uncle told you he was nipping out for. A cigar-store battery was a front for a small-scale brothel.
Clocker
Can refer to i) a car dealer who winds back the mileometer to make it look as if the car is newer than it really is, or ii) someone who times racehorses to try to work out their speed, or iii) US street dealer in crack cocaine or heroin, who works around the clock, immortalised in Richard Price’s novel Clockers.
Clue-puzzle
The kind of murder-mystery fiction sometimes produced by Golden Age crime writers, in which the detective has to piece together the clues to finish the puzzle. Such stories feature hardly any blood, but a lot of ‘little grey cells’.
Cockchafer
A noun that leaves little to the imagination. A treadmill was installed inside ‘Houses of Correction’. Prisoners were forced to climb 8640 feet every day. The punishment did no earthly good whatever, and that was the point.
Commission
Group of organised-crime leaders who ultimately make the decisions in the United States, much like the board of a giant corporation. It consists of heads of New York’s famous Five Families, plus the Chicago Outfit, and, from time to time, heads of other families. The Commission appears still to exist, and is still somewhat active, but it would be fair to say that its glory days are over.
Community violence
A public act which causes harm: perpetrator and victim are strangers.
Comstockery
After Anthony Comstock, notorious prude of late 19th-century New York City. It means censorship either of obscence materials – like letters or condoms – or behaviour considered immoral – such as abortion.
Conjo
Or, in voodoo, mojo. A small bag that contains ingredients required to cast a spell. Commonly it will involve such items as hair, coins, herbs, and so on.
Courts of Miracles (cours de miracles)
Hideouts of 17th or 18th-century Parisian criminals of every stripe, from prostitutes to pickpockets. So called because professional beggars who had been afflicted with all kinds of disabilities suddenly recovered their full health as soon as they arrived.
Cowards’ Highway, The
Suicide.
Crash n dash
Leaving the scene of an automobile accident.
Crime corridor
The geography between Minnesota and Texas, that proved remarkably vulnerable to bank robberies, especially during the period 1925-32.
Criminal Man
Usual translation of the phrase used by the Italian criminal anthropologist, Cesare Lombroso, for the title of his important book, L’Uomo Delinquente. Lombroso’s fundamental idea was that certain people were biological criminals, because they were atavistic throwbacks to early stages of human evolution. They behaved and looked differently from modern civilians.
Crimp
In the early days of New York City, one who drugged and robbed sailors, often in highly-questionable dive bars.
Crossing
In voodoo, calling on a spirit to bring bad luck or actual harm to one’s enemies. See also gris-gris.
Cutout
Espionage term for an intermediary trusted by two parties who wish to exchange information, instructions, etc. The cutout’s knowledge of the operation is extremely limited: they could in fact be ‘cut out’ of the operation and it would continue to run. Hence the possible capture of the cutout need not be a disaster for those running the operation.
D
Dark figure
It is difficult to know how much crime actually occurs. There will always be a gap between official counts and the true number. No one knows how big the gap is. That’s because not all crime is reported, and not all reported crime is recorded. Police or government estimates of ‘increasing’ or ‘decreasing’ incidence of crime should be taken with a pinch of salt and possibly some lime and tequila too. See also: validity and reliability.
Day plunderer
A man who would help unload a ship for free, in the hope of making off with as much plunder as possible. He’d often conceal it in the crown of his hat or down his trousers. Also known as Heavy-horsemen. Cf Light-horseman.
Dead Man’s Hand
In poker, ace – eight of spades plus ace-eight of clubs (two pair). Named for the murder of Wild Bill Hickock, lawman, shootist, and all-round prevaricator who was shot by the gambler Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota. Supposedly, Hickock was holding this hand when he died (sitting, uncharacteristically, away from the wall). This may not be true and is in any case unverifiable.
Death-hunter
Late 18th and also 19th-century slang meaning, originally, an undertaker, and then, later, a journalist who wrote about murder.
Dechristianisation
Term invented during the French Revolution to mean exactly what it sounds like: removing religion from the citizens’ lives. Churches were closed and priests forced to marry.
Deuce
(i) Nickname for 42nd Street in Manhattan, once New York City’s pit of iniquity. (ii) ‘Deuce’ also, of course, means ‘devil’. Make of that what you will. (iii) Drunk driver.
Diesel
Tea served in UK prisons.
Driving award
See paperwork.
Dub-lay
Obsolete slang for pickpocketing.
E
E-man
A person seeking lawful status who, in their enthusiasm, has tried somewhat too hard, by making an attempt to escape from prison.
Ecological validity
Jargon word used in Psychology and other, related, sciences, to mean the extent to which one’s findings apply in ‘the real world’, outside the laboratory.
Eye
Often used in hard-boiled fiction as a abbreviation of the phrase ‘private eye’. Used repeatedly and indelibly in Marc Behm’s novel, The Eye of the Beholder.
F
Fact
Once used in English law as a synonym for ‘crime’. It derives from Roman law, which was concerned with the factum, meaning the ‘deed’, or ‘crime’. Once an English jury agreed on a fact, no one was allowed to argue. We use the word in the same way even now. Facts leave no room for argument.
Fanny Adams
Expression used colloquially to mean ‘nothing’ or ‘a thing of no value’. The macabre derivation is from a young girl who was the victim, it seems, of a man called Frederick Baker, who literally tore her body apart. Looking at their rations, sailors in the Royal Navy complained that they looked ‘just like Fanny Adams’.
Fetish
In voodoo or hoodoo, any object invested with magical powers. It might be a string with knots in it, an alligator tooth, graveyard dirt, or whatever else works.
Feux follet
In the American Deep South, lights in the sky that make travellers get lost. They may represent the souls of unbaptised children, or, alternatively, souls banished from Hell.
File
Flash term for pickpocket.
Fish
Prison newbie
Fish Tank
American prisons’ intake processing unit.
Flash
18th century English thieves’ cant or argot. Mostly obsolete now, its influence can be felt in the language of English-speaking underworld in the UK and US, as well as in fantasy role-playing games. Also known as Peddlers’ French.
Flake
Cocaine.
Flash for cash
Traffic camera.
Footpad
Low-class highwayman who worked on foot, rather than horseback. Cf. Bush ranger.
Foot scamperer
Another term for a footpad.
Freebooter
Cooler term for a pirate or other plunderer.
Freedom speeding
The kind that happens as a consequence of leaving an area of heavy traffic in which one had to drive very slowly and carefully. It relates to the psychological idea of ‘risk homeostasis’, which implies that we try to keep our level of driving risk stable, so that if one part of our trip seems extemely safe, we may compensate on others.
Frog march
The same as a perp walk, except that it may not necessarily involve the press or public display.
G
G-man
Name for FBI agents, apparently bestowed on them without their knowledge by American criminals of the 30s. FBI agents were apparently surprised when George ‘Machine-Gun’ Kelly surrendered to them (1933) shouting, ’Don’t shoot, G-men!’ They didn’t know who he was talking to. Reputedly, ‘G’ stands for ‘government’. Some prefer to place the term’s origin in Ireland, where it meant a plainclothes detective. They claim the ‘G’ stood for nothing at all. The ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly story is better.
Game-ship
One targetted by Light-Horsemen.
Gammon
Flash term. Two or more people may be involved in pickpocketing. The file steals the victim’s wallet while others jostle them about, so that they don’t notice. Those who do the jostling are the Gammons.
Gauldry
In Scotland, a row of houses leading up to the gallows. The Gauldry (with the definite article) is a small town in Fife. That ‘d’ has been present in the name only for a couple of hundred years.
Git
Getaway map as used by Jazz Age bank robbers and other yeggs. Like cat roads, gits were championed by Herman K ‘The Baron’ Lamm, one of the greatest of the yeggs.
Glasgow kiss
Headbutt in the face. Cf Liverpool kiss. See also: Glasgow smile
Glasgow smile
Scarring left behind by a knife-wound to the face, running from the corners of the mouth towards the ears. Also known as a ‘buck 50’.
Golden Age fiction
Mostly-British school of crime fiction, usually dated to about 1913. Golden Age fiction dealt in clues and puzzles and sometimes clue-puzzles. Authors include Marjorie Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers, and Agatha Christie.
Grass-eater
Cop (particularly in the NYPD) who takes part in minor corruption. Cf meat-eater.
Green death
American term for marijuana. The term is not used with great seriousness.
Green mile
Colloquially, the route towards the inevitable. Derived, probably, from the Stephen King novel of the same name, in which the ‘mile’ from the condemned cell to the electric chair had a green floor.
Grendel
Two, related, menaings: i) The great, fearsome antagonist in the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf. ii) Named after him, a character invented by Matt Wagner for his massive comic-book series. It started in 1982 and is still painting a massive portrait of the nature of violence across time and space.
Gris-gris
Usually a bag filled with stuff like nail clippings or herbs, used in voodoo to ward off bad luck, perhaps from crossing.
Gunfighter
Chiefly a modern term. It appears to have been used first in 1874. The gunfighter’s contemporaries would have called him a shootist.
Gunfighter Nation
The United States of America, of course. Term invented to account for the country’s remarkable persistence of violence. The argument is that frontier days imbued later history with a ‘template of violence’ which has formed its pattern ever since.
H
Hanging tree
Gallows – or, in the US, tree used for lynching.
Hard-boiled fiction
School that grew up in the USA in the early decades of the 20th century, in reaction to Golden Age fiction. The work was more intense and realistic than anything that had appeared in crime fiction before. Writers like Hammett, Chandler, and James M Cain wrote about what it was like to fight, blackmail, or kill, or to investigate such crimes.
Harman
Flash term for police constable. See also Bobby and Peeler.
Heave a booth
Flash term for burgling a house.
Helter Skelter
Beatles song supposedly interpreted by Charles Manson as being about a coming race war. At the site of the second of their mass murders, one of the Manson Family left the misspelt words ‘Healter Skelter’ in blood on the refrigerator. The concept was enlarged upon at trial by former Manson Family member, Paul Watkins. He claimed the Family planned to escape Helter Skelter by living in a bottomless pit, where it would multiply into 144,000 people. This is the story famously told by the attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, in his book of the same name: once, and possibly still, the bestselling true-crime book ever published. Journalist Tom O’Neill, in his book Chaos, expresses scepticism.
Hoover flag
Pocket turned inside out. The idea is to show that you have no money and are therefore an unpromising target for thieves. Named after the American President who was in office during the Great Depression. Cf. Hooverville.
Hooverville
American version of a shantytown, erected during the Great Depression. Cf. Hoover flag.
Horrorism
Term coined by British novelist, Martin Amis, to describe crimes that aren’t quite ‘terrorism’, since, he argued, they do not fill you with terror so much as an emotion closer to revulsion. One example might be suicide bombing. It leaves even those spectators who survive splattered with unpleasantness.
Hot-sheet motel
One usually paid for by the hour, used by sex workers and their clients.
Hot words
New slang invented largely by young Chinese to help bypass national internet censorship.
I
Ice
Almost no word has more criminal associations: i) diamonds, particularly ones taken in a heist, given the resemblance of diamonds to ice cubes ii) to kill someone, especially when it is a gangland hit or wet job iii) either of the drugs, ecstasy or crystal meth iv) money taken off the gross before it is officially counted (or skim) v) (archaic) to escape quickly from the scene of a crime.
J
J-cat
Two meanings: i) American prison slang for an inmate who is suffering some form of psychological disorder. ii) Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce.
Jack Ketch
Inept executioner of the 17th century. His name was used after his death to refer to executioners in general. ‘Jack Ketch’s necklace’ came to mean the noose.
Jackrabbit parole
American term meaning a runaway escape from the clutches of the law.
Jam sandwich
Now-outdated UK colloquialism for police car, derived from the distinctive appearance: white with a horizontal red stripe.
Jug
Jazz-Age term for a bank.
Jug marker
Member of a gang of yeggs whose job was to case a jug before the robbery.
Juice
A contendor with ice for the word with the largest number of known criminal associates. i) Respect, power, charisma and all the other things everyone aspires to. ii) Steroids, or performance-enhancing drugs, particularly when used by an athlete illegally to improve their performance. iii) Irritant sprinkled on boxing gloves with the intention of having it seep into the opponent’s eyes.
K
Kanga
Cockney rhyming slang for prison officer, by way of ‘kangaroo’ – screw.
Keister
Verb: a less-than-hygienic way of smuggling contraband into prison.
KG
‘Known Gambler’. This phrase seems to be used especially to refer to corrupt American cops.
Kite
Prisoner’s note passed to others by surreptitious means.
Knight of the High Toby
Highwayman.
Kojak light
One placed on the roof of an unmarked police car to get other road users out of the way. Named for the television show, Kojak, of course.
Kompromat
The clue is in the name – compromising material created or collected for the purpose of blackmail. Usually used when politicians or other influential public figures are involved.
L
L-WOP
American prsion slang: Life WithOut Possibility of Parole. Cf All day.
Lane of shame
In Italy – home of speedsters - the part of the motorway where people drive if they want to stick to the legal speed limit.
Lead poisoning
Old West euphemism meaning shot, as in, ‘The saloon had three men for breakfast today. They all died of lead poisoning’.
Leather slapping
The drawing of a handgun from a holster, usually applied with reference to gunmen of the Old West.
Leg bail
American: to run away from police. Cf. Jackrabbit parole.
Legend
Term used by the CIA. It means the cover for an operation, or the operation itself. Likely to refer to a ‘false biography’ of a spy or other agent in the field. Edward Jay Epstein used the word for the title of his book about Lee Harvey Oswald.
Light-Horseman
Man who worked as part of a gang at the London docks. They would bribe the watchmen to let them on board Game Ships, usually from the West Indies, and steal sugar. They usually resealed the casks so that the crime would not be noticed straight away.
Liverpool kiss
Appears to be an earlier, English, version of the Glasgow kiss.
Loa
Also known as the ‘invisibles’. The thousands of spirits in voodoo who mediate between human beings and Bondye (God). The first Christians to encounter voodoo misunderstood loa, and suspected that they were equivalent to the demons of their own religion. The best known of the loa is Baron Samedi.
LOB
Abbreviation sometimes written by police officers on transcripts of testimony that does not appear compelling in its veracity. Stands for Load Of Bollocks.
Longrider
Wild West outlaw or bandit, so called because they spent a ot of time escaping on horseback from the law, perhaps in order to avoid a necktie party.
Lot lizard
Sex workers or prostitutes who make a living in America’s huge truck-stops. Murder is said to be the leading cause of death for American sex workers in general. You can probably double or triple the risk when it comes to lot lizards.
Lumper
Labourer in London who worked at unloading ships. There were so many stages to this process that there were multiple opportunities for theft, most of which seem to have been taken.
M
Man for breakfast
Term used by settlers in the Old West for a murdered body found at dawn. One could rate the safety of various drinking establishments in the early days of, say, Los Angeles, by saying how many men they had for breakfast this week.
Marching powder
Cocaine.
Mattoon, Mad Anaesthetist of
Also known as the Mad Gasser. Criminal who almost certainly never existed, but exemplifies the interesting psychological phenomenon of mass hysteria. The criminal – if he or she ever existed – was active in Virginia, USA, in 1933-4. Over the course of three months, a number of families smelt odd odours in their houses and felt ill. A reward was posted; vigilante posses roamed the streets. On one single day, police investigated nine individual cases, and found each one had a natural explanation, involving neither madness nor anaesthetists. The whole craze seemed to be a case of over-excitable imaginations.
Meat-eater
Cop (particularly in the NYPD) who is exceptionally corrupt. Cf. Grass-eater.
Mercy seat
Term originally meaning the covering of the Ark of the Covenant, or throne of God, or seat in a church used to support someone who prays for a long time. Used ironically in a song by Nick Cave to refer to the electric chair.
Merry Pranksters
Group of young people from the anti-establishment counterculture in the US in the mid to late 1960s who crossed the country under the leadership of the author Ken Kesey. They rode a psychedelically-painted bus with the word Furthur at the front in place of a destination. The Merry Pranksters were responsible, along with rock band The Grateful Dead, for the notorious Acid Tests.
Mickey Finn
Term first appearing in the 1890s. Drink served at a dive bar in (usually) New York, although it was named after a barkeeper from Chicago. It contained chloral hydrate, which does nothing good for the heart. The idea was to render a likely-looking victim senseless so he could be robbed more easily. The original Mickey Finn supposedly purchased the recipe from a New Orleans voodoo doctor.
Mill ken
Flash term for housebreaker.
Minor Attracted Person (MAP)
Term recently introduced to replace ‘child-molestor’ or ‘paedophile’.
Missouri toothpick
A long sharp knife.
Molly whop
American prison slang. A beating, either given or received.
Mouthpiece
Criminal defence lawyer (slang).
Mugger money
Small quantity of cash carried in a readily-accessible pocket to hand to muggers in the hope they might go away without investigating whether you also have a wallet, purse, money belt, etc.
Murder ballad
Genre of music, rooted in folk, that became popular in northern Europe in the 16th century. Murder ballads usually form a narrative covering the planning, commission, and aftermath of a crime. Today, the genre is probably most closely associated with the US, although many murder ballads popular there have British sources. The transplanted music has taken on overtones from blues, hillbilly, country, and other genres. They often, although not exclusively, depict male murderers and female victims. Murder Ballads is also the title of a studio album by the rock band, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
Mustache Pete
Derogatory name given to old-school, Sicilian-type mafioso of the sort who ran organised crime in its early days in the United States. Mustache Petes were wiped out by Lucky Luciano and his associates under cover of a big internecine Mafia war in 1931. Luciano thereafter became Capo di Tutti Capi in all but name.
Mutt and Jeff
Interview or interrogation technique where the two police officers take opposing views of the topic, in the hope that the intervieweee or suspect will respond better to one than the other. Also known as ‘good cop-bad cop’, a staple of cop shows on television.
N
Necktie party
A hanging or lynching in the Wild West.
New Journalism, The
Type developed in the 1960s and 70s, featuring an overtly literary approach derived from fiction and subjective viewpoint. Generally published in countercultural magazines, or, often, collected in book form. One example of the latter is Tom Wolfe’s eponymous collection from 1973. Distant roots may be found in yellow journalism of the late 19th century. Defining examples include a number of studies of crime and the counterculture: Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acis Test (1965); Norman Mailer’s study of protests against the Vietnam War, The Armies of the Night (1968); Hannah Arendt’s ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ (1963); and, most famously, Truman Capote’s study of Mid-West murder, In Cold Blood (1965).
Night Train
Two very distinct meanings: i) Brand of cheap, high-alcohol, fortified wine. ii) To have sexual intercourse with someone who is asleep.
Ninja turtle
American term referring to a correctional officer wearing riot gear.
Nonce
A prisoner who was found guilty of sexual crimes, especially ones involving children. The word has connotations of contempt and potential violence – hence they are Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise, which is where the acronym is often said to derive. I’ve also heard it that it’s an abbreviation for ‘nonsense’. Both could be true.
O
Obtemper
Term from Scots law, meaning to comply with a judgment or decree.
OG
Respectful term for experienced criminal or prisoner. Acronym for Original Gangsta.
Oil
Obsolete American bank robbers’ term for nitroglycerine.
OJ’d, To be
Passive verb, doubtless outdated now, meaning to have one’s media appearance curtailed, shifted, or cancelled in order to accommodate more coverage of the OJ Simpson trial, or other important news event which will doubtless garner more viewers or listeners. Used, for example, in comments like, ‘I’m sorry, Jason, your interesting section on Crime and Psychology has been OJ’d, because we’ve just heard he’s bought a new pair of gloves’.
Old Nick; Old Scratch
The devil.
On the shoot
Cowboy term meaning ‘looking for trouble’.
Out, The
The world outside prison.
Outfit, The
Name given to the organised-crime group that took over after the fall of Al Capone in Chicago. The first to take over the reins was Frank ‘The Enforcer’ Nitti, but he was not around for long. The Outfit proper is usually associated with Tony Accardo (‘The Genuine Godfather’), Murray ‘Curly’ Humphries, Paul ‘The Waiter’ Ricca, and its representative in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Johnny ‘Mr Handsome’ Rosselli. The Outfit is probably the most interesting organised-crime syndicate in history.
Outlaw country
Also sometimes known as redneck rock. Subgenre of country music invented by a group of artists including Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. Fans date the movement to Jennings’ Ladies Love Outlaws (1972). Many felt that mainstream country music had become somewhat anodyne by the 1970s and 80s. Outlaw artists harked back to earlier styles, such as honky tonk, and added rock and rockabilly elements. The seminal recording is Wanted! The Outlaws, which, ironically for a reaction against mainstream music, became the most successful country record ever pressed. You can read more here.
Owl Hoot Trail
Wild-West outlaw lifestyle.
P
Pad
Regular, systematic pay-off to police. I haven’t seen this term used except with reference to the NYPD.
Padmate
Person in the same prison cell as you.
Paperwork
US trucker slang for a speeding ticket.
Peddlers’ French
Another term for flash.
Peeler
Colloquial term name for police officer, rarely heard nowadays. For derivation, see Bobby.
Pennyweighter
Someone who stole small amounts of gold from a mine in the American West.
Perp walk
When a detainee is taken into a police station in such a way that the press can see and photograph the event. It makes for good publicity. Devised early in the 20th century by police departments who wanted to reassure the public they were doing plenty to fight crime. Cf frog march.
Person seeking lawful status
Euphemism for prisoner.
Petite maison
Literally ‘small house’. Property used by financially-unembarrassed French noblemen for meeting mistresses and prostitutes.
Pettifogger
Uncomplimentary term for ‘lawyer’. ‘Petti’ derives from the French for ‘small’, and ‘fogger’, at one time, meant ‘lawyer’ – so, a ‘small lawyer’.
Pigeon fucker
Term used in Alcoholics Anonymous. It refers to a sponsor who takes sexual advantage of a sponsee, who is likely to be emotionally vulnerable. Derives from the slang term ‘pigeon’, for a young woman who is easily duped.
Pluries
Third writ in a series, issued after the first two have been ignored or proven ineffective.
Pocket advantage
Term from the Wild West. Small gun carried half-cocked in the coat pocket. It can be drawn and fired before one’s opponent has time to react.
Podiacide
An amalgamation of the words ‘podiatry’ and ‘suicide’, meaning ‘shooting oneself in the foot’. Self-inflicted injury to one’s standing or public image. The word became well-known in 2006, when it was employed in the United Nations.
Pop
Verb, meaning to use oil or other explosives to open a bank vault door without express permission of the manager.
Prison Blues
Garment factory created in Pendelton, Oregon, as a way of defraying the cost of keeping people in prison. The business was set up using drug money from police seizures. Jobs are apparently highly sought after, and go only to prisoners with records of good conduct. There can be a three-year waiting time for an interview, which provides motivation to stay on the right side of the authorities. It also teaches a skill which may be useful on release. Check out the Correction Connection Prison Blues summary page of business.
Prog
Beg, pilfer, scrounge, or steal. Stolen items are generally the stuff of life, such as food.
Provo
Slang for member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
Prushun
US slang - a boy who travels with a hobo, commits minor crimes like theft for him, and provides sexual services.
Psychic homicide
Term for voodoo death; one that emphasises the malice involved in planting the curse.
Psychophysiological death
Alternative, tongue-twisting term proposed by some for the term voodoo death.
Q
Quacksalver
Con artist of a particular kind - one who claims to have medical expertise, but does not. Probably tries to sell over-priced, useless, and possibly poisonous remedies. The earliest use of the term seems to have been in the 16th century. It’s the word from which we derive the more modern derogatory term for a doctor – quack. Cf Saltimbanco
Quality of life crimes
Those that are not necessarily all that dangerous or even feared, but which do exactly what the name implies – spoil citizens’ everyday experience of the world. They include public urination, vandalism, and graffiti-spraying.
Quisling
Particular kind of traitor – one who collaborates consciously with enemy or occupying forces at the cost of their own country. The word derives from the Norwegian wartime leader, Vidkun Quisling, who did just that with occupying Nazi forces.
R
Rakehell
Obsolete 16th century term for a wealthy or fashionable gentleman whose habits were less than upright or respectable.
Rampallion
Scoundrel or ruffian. Vakabon.
Reliability
Jargon term meaning the extent to which a test continues to give the same result, however often you use it. Official crime statistics are often unreliable, owing to the dark figure, among other things. They may give you different estimates month by month, even if the actual level of crime remains constant.
Resipiscence
Coming from the Latin meaning ‘recover one’s senses’. Recognition of past crimes or mistakes and the resolution to do better in future.
Resurrection Man
Grave-robber of the same approximate era as Burke and Hare. Not nearly as nice as it sounds.
Ring faller
Criminal of the 16th century, who would drop worthless rings in front of impressionable folk and file them when they bent over to pick the rings up.
Roadman
More modern than it sounds. A street-smart fellow, usually a teeenager.
Rolling Stone
Completely non-existent town invented by conman William Haddock. He went so far as to equip his invented community with its own newspaper. Haddock sold property that didn’t exist to people who hadn’t checked, and then went off and invented more.
Romance scam
Kind of internet fraud. Fraudsters pretend to be in love with their victims. They plead financial hardship and request help, which they receive in the millions every year – and that’s just the ones we know about.
Rookery
Common term for a slum in (especially) Victorian London, known as a breeding-ground for crime and an inexhaustible labyrinth for criminals fleeing the law.
RTFL
A reminder among police officers to familiarise themselves with events since their last shift: ‘Read The Fucking Log’.
Rumfustian
A hot drink reputedly popular among Caribbean pirates. The indiscriminate list of ingredients includes beer, gin, and sherry; eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and probably the ship’s cat and some gunpowder too.
Running Smabble
Flash term for an unsophisticated crime, whereby a thief would run into a shop at night, blow out the candle, and steal anything they could get their hands on. What the crime was called if the shopkeeper himself remembered to blow out the light, I don’t know.
S
Saltimbanco
Seller of quack medicine. It comes from a Romance word meaning ‘one who jumps up onto a bench’ (you may know the Picasso painting Saltimbanques), which gives us an idea of how a saltimbanco used to operate. Cf Quacksalver; snake-oil salesman.
Sam Browne belt
Part of army, and then police, uniforms, named after the one-armed British Army officer who invented it. There is one thick leather belt around the middle, which forces the officer to stand up straight, and a thinner one across the shoulder. The idea is for this second strap to keep the first in place, and the sword hanging from it conveniently to hand. Dropped from most police uniforms in the middle of the 20th century when the thinner belt became known as a suicide strap, thereby lessening its appeal.
Samizdat
Kind of forgery, or evasion of censorship, whereby citizens copy and distribute material that the state has banned. The term is most closely associated with former Communist countries of eastern Europe.
Satan’s Circus
Manhattan district, Fortieth Street south to Twenty-fourth, between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, once notorious for brothels.
Screw
Prison warder. The term derives from the crank that prisoners used to have in their cells. They had to turn the crank a certain number of times in order to get fed (‘If a man will notwork,’ it was said, ‘neither shall he eat’). The handle did nothing more than drag a paddle through some gravel. As the well-exercised prisoner grew in strength, the warder could tighten the ‘screw’ on the outside of the wall to make the job more difficult. Cf Kanga
Scuffle-hunter
Type of portside manual labourer in London who was more actively engaged in stealing merchandise than loading it onto the appropriate ships. A scuffle-hunter would wear a large apron in which to conceal stolen goods. They were tremendously effective and expensive in the years before the River Police.
Sexsomnia
Rare psychological syndrome in which a person has sex while asleep. Sexsomnia has been linked to a cumber of sex crimes, up to and including rape.
Shakedown
US slang for blackmail.
Shitbird
Originally a colloquial military term for a useless and ignorant person, now spread to civilian life. The term may have been used more frequently by the crime novelist James Ellroy than by everyone else added together.
Shoes on semolina
See brothel-creepers.
Shootist
Contemporaneous Old West term for someone we would call a ‘gunfighter’ today.
Shoe
Or SHU – Secure Housing Unit in a prison.
Sicily of Spain
Nickname used by law-enforcement officials to refer to Galicia, centre of the startlingly-large world trade in illegally-caught fish.
Signature
Term developed by the FBI to refer to idiosyncratic features of a crime scene. They indicate activity on the part of the criminal, over and above what was necessary to commit the crime. If modus operandi is how the criminal commits the crime, signature helps tell us why.
Skim
Noun: money taken off the gross before anyone sees it, or, verb, to take money off the top. See also ice.
Slammer
Prison.
Sleeves
Jailhouse tattoos running neck to wrist, showing gang affiliation.
Slubberdegullion
One who is oafish and ill-presented. This word should appear more often in the political news.
Slum jewellery
Fake Rolex watches, imitation-gold chains, etc.
Slum the ken
Flash term meaning break into the house.
Smoke wagon
Revolver of the kind used on the American frontier.
Smokey bear
CB-radio speak for police officer. Gives us the following: Bear bite – speeding ticket; Bear cave – Police station; Bear in the air – police helicopter
Snakehead
People smuggler, often Chinese, specialising in routes to the West.
Snake-oil salesman
Modern word for Quacksalver. One who trades in useless medicines or other healthcare scams. The term comes from 19th-century American con artists, who got the idea from Chinese immigrants working on the First Transcontinental Railroad. They treated physical pains with oil from the Chinese water snake. Since the Chinese water snake was pretty thin on the ground in the United States, charlatans decided to use rattlesnakes instead. They often enriched the potion with cocaine or other drugs. Today, a snake-oil salesman is not necessarily a criminal (although that may be the implication): they simply endorse or promote useless products.
Social bandit
Criminal identified by Marxist historians, who view certain crimes as micro-mutinies against the state. Social bandits are as much legend as flesh and blood. They have certain powers - such as invisibility - and a promise to return after death to save their agrarian communities from the unjustified encroachments of modern, capitalistic, power. Examples include Scotland’s Rob Roy, India’s Rangine, and America’s Jesse James.
Somnabulism
Syndrome in which a person literally walks while asleep. Crimes committed while asleep have been known to include somnambulistic homicide. Punishments have historically varied, but may include no one ever sleeping within 20 miles. See also sexsomnia.
Snollygoster
Merriam-Webster has this as ‘an unprincipled but shrewd person’. Not a term much used where I live. The term seems to date from late 19th century America. Early uses have it referring to politicians who want office regardless of what they have to do to get it.
Stegophily
See Urban climbing.
‘Stop me before I kill again’
This well-known phrase is a slight misquote. Message written in lipstick at a murder scene, probably (but not definitely) by William Heirens, December 1945. He seems to have written on a mirror in the apartment belonging to his victim, Frances Brown, ‘For heaven’s sake catch me before I kill more, I cannot control myself’. Heirens died in prison in 2012, aged 83, after 65 years incarcerated, with the reputation of a serial killer. Some believe he may have been innocent. The phrase was popularised by the 1960 film, Stop me Before I Kill!, starring Claude Dauphin.
Suck-start a rifle
US military slang for committing suicide by shooting onself in the head.
SUD
Medical acronym - Sudden Unexpected Death. The usual cause turns out to be heart attack or haemorrage or something else readily identifiable. Nevertheless it has been used as an explanation for psychophysiological death.
Suicide strap
Narrow leather strap across the shoulder of a Sam Browne belt, often used as part of police uniforms. Desperate villains often tried to use them as strangulation devices. For that reason, suicide straps fell out of favour in the middle years of the 20th century.
Swedish Desperado, The
John Yegg. The Swedish Desperado was perhaps the first to extract nitro-glycerine – or oil – from dynamite for the purpose of safe-cracking. Alcohol led him into bank robbery and alcohol kept him there.
Swikedom
Treachery or other deceit.
T
Tail Drawer
Flash term for man who steals your sword while you are actually wearing it.
Tenderloin
Once an area of Manhattan – Sixth Avenue and the streets around it, roughly congruent to Satan’s Circus. It was a red-light district at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century. The name was supposedly given it in honour of the high-quality steaks its meat-eater policemen could afford on account of graft. Now more commonly refers to a portion of downtown San Francisco. Once notorious for gambling and blind tigers, it is a high-crime area even today, featuring seven out of the ten most criminal spots in the whole city. It feels like it, too, late at night, let me tell you. In the years 2015-18, more than 300 lamp-posts had to be replaced because they’d been corroded by urine, and I wish I was making that up.
Thanatomania
Belief, common in some cultures, that one will inescapably die as the consequence of being cursed by, say, a witch doctor, medicine man, or voodoo practitioner.
Thieftaking
Practice perfected by the London criminal, Jonathan Wild, who made himself rich turning in criminals and collecting the reward for crimes that (often) he himself had conceived and plotted.
Time to feed the warden
American prison slang – the need to urinate.
Triggernometry
The art of gunmanship, especially in the Old West. Gunfighters were experts in leather slapping.
Trollfolk
Norse word originally meaning ‘witches’, but which came to mean something closer to ‘those who live in the forest’, or, in English, ‘trolls’.
Trunk music
Corpse dumped in the back of a car. It probably belonged to someone who got on the wrong side of organised crime. The term seems to refer to the gurgling noise the corpse makes when it has been left for a long time.
Truther
Conspiracy theorist who wants to reveal the ‘truth’ behind some large event that malignant forces have tried to cover up. Closely associated with ‘moon truthers’, who believe that we have never landed on the Moon. There are also ‘9/11 truthers’.
Twocer
Someone who Takes Without Owner’s Consent. Generally refers to car crime.
U
Undies
Undercover police officers, of course.
Unsub
Abbreviation of ‘unknown subject of investigation’, which translates as ‘the villain we are looking for’. Term used originally by the FBI, it seems, on the grounds that giving a nickname to the villain was considered bad form.
Urban climbing
Pastime that involves climbing buildings or other artificial structures. Often illegal. Another term for ‘stegophily’.
V
Vakabon
Much like English ‘vagabond’. Creole word meaning something like ‘rascal’ or ‘troublemaker’.
Validity
Jargon term meaning the extent to which a test measures what it is supposed to measure. It is very easy to ask people whether they have ever been the victim of blackmail, for instance. It is more difficult to know whether to trust the answer, since they may be keen to have you think that they are virtuous people who could never be blackmailed anyway. Official crime statistics are often lacking in both validity and reliability.
Voodoo death
Dramatic but perhaps regrettable misnomer for deaths caused in all parts of the world – not just where voodoo is practiced – apparently as a result of witchcraft or sorcery. The term has connotations of Victorian scientists’ exoticism, but, since its adoption by the early 20th century anthropologists, seems to have stuck. This may be because alternative and related terms such as thanatomania and psychophysiological death are so much less imaginative, never mind the difficulty you might have pronouncing them.
W
Wardrive
Sounds much more exciting than it is. It just means to drive around looking for vulnerabilities in wifi, in order to steal passwords and such.
Warp speed
Verb: to drive at a speed well over the legal limit. Noun: the extreme speed at which one was travelling.
Wet job
Or, sometimes, ‘wet work’. Assassination, usually one carried out on behalf of a government or other official agency. Occasionally used in the context of an organised-crime hit. English translation of a term invented by the Russian KGB.
White hat
A ‘good’ hacker, who tests out the security of computer system. Cf black hat.
Whizzer
Pickpocket – one who could get away quickly.
Wife-beater
Short-sleeved, often dirty, undershirt, properly known as A-style. There are various stories about how the shirt got its name. One, from 1947, refers to a Detroit man named James Hartford who beat his wife to death and was photographed wearing an A-style shirt as he emerged from their home. Newspaper photos were captioned ‘wife-beater’. Even before 1947, Hollywood was using the A-shirt as a shorthand way of conveying certain character traits to the audience. More recently, Bruce Willis wore one almost the whole way through the movie Die Hard.
Wilderness of mirrors
Arresting phrase used by quondam poet and legendary CIA operative, James Jesus Angleton, to refer to his world of counter-espionage.
‘With great power comes great responsibility’
In the case of most authors who have had a measurable effect on the culture, one can quote a few lines. In the case of Stan Lee, the man who – to a much-debated extent – was behind Marvel’s caped crimefighters, that is not the case. If pushed, most comics fans could only come up with this phrase, forever be linked to Spider-Man. But it’s not in fact what Stan Lee wrote. Here’s the actual line: ‘[…] in this world, with great power must also come – great responsibility!’ Very similar phrases had already appeared in a decree from the French National Convention (1793) and the works of Churchill (1906) and Roosevelt (1945).
X
X’d out
American, gang-related. Comes from the term ‘crossed out’ – like the name of a rival gang member who is the object of a wet job.
Y
Yegg (sometimes ‘yeggman’)
American bank-robber or robber of some other large financial institution, especially during the 1920s. The most famous yegg was John Dillinger. Given lots of public support and a degree of hero worship, yeggs were the social bandits of their era. Probably named for ‘Swedish Desperado’ John Yegg, one of the first Western bank-robbers. Yegg was an engineer who perfected the use of oil in blowing safes.
Yellow journalism
Sensationalist and poorly-researched; focussed on crime and other spectacular subjects; designed to sell newspapers.
Yo ho ho
A phrase that pirates didn’t use. Invented by the great writer Robert Louis Stevenson especially for his novel, Treasure Island, which is responsible for a lot of mistaken pirate lore. Stevenson just liked the sound.
You Got Nothing Coming
Title of autobiographical book by Jimmy Lerner about his time in prison for murder, taken from a piece of prison slang meaning, effectively, ‘No’ - or, rather, ‘Emphatically no’.
Z
Zombi
Not quite what you think - Zombi is identified by one expert as a ‘voodoo snake deity in the Southern United States’ (Bodin, Ron: Voodoo – Past & present)
Zombie
Police officer who is either lazy, close to retirement, vicious, or any combination of the above.