DICTIONARY OF CRIME PART 3
Almost every word about Crime & Psychology you ever wanted to know. Even better - quite a few you didn't.
A PSYCHOLOGIST’S DICTIONARY OF CRIME
This is the third version of our dictionary, updated and three times as long as the first edition. Again, this is too big for e-mail. I strongly encourage you to get the app. It makes Substack so much better:
As ever, please don’t read on if you are easily offended. There are some adult terms here.
All terms are from the UK unless otherwise specified.
1L
First-year Law student.
419 scam
Fraud that originated with the fax machine or even, sometimes, handwritten letters, but which really became successful in the internet age. An appeal comes, frequently, from Nigeria. It asks Westerners 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.
51s
Crack cocaine. The digits 51 rendered as Roman numerals also give the apparently-gratifying VI, or the middle letters of the word ’evil’. May also derive from 5150.
5150
Two related meanings: i) California police code for a person probably suffering mental illness, who is annoying the public; ii) US prison slang for an inmate who suffers some form of mental illness or otherwise needs psychiatric treatment. See also one-fifty-one.
87th Precinct
Fictional police precinct on the island of Isola – a huge urban area clearly intended to represent Manhattan – invented by the American crime writer, Ed McBain (along with ‘Evan Hunter’ the pseudonym of Salvatore Lombino). McBain is considered the grandfather – or maybe Godfather – of the police procedural crime novel. He wrote no fewer than 55 book in the series. Some are better than others, of course, but when McBain got it right, as in Ice or The Empty Hours, there was no one to touch him. Lombino also worked in the crime genre sometimes called ‘forensic’. He was apparently irritated by the attention given to such writers as Patricia Cornwell, who got credit for a genre which he had a fair claim to have invented.
A
Abactor
Bad shepherd or cowhand who connives in stealing the flock or herd he or she is employed to guard.
Abbey clogs
Fetters worn round the ankles by prisoners.
Abigail
Backstreet abortion.
Abram man
Victorian English slang for a fellow who dresses as a beggar, may pretend to be mad, but will half-inch your pocket book, given half a chance.
Above snakes
Old West term meaning ‘still alive’, i.e., not yet buried. You can find a big dictionary of Old West terms by following this excellent link.
Academician
Victorian English slang for a prostitute (today we might use the term ‘sex worker’) in a brothel, as opposed to a street walker.
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 the years 1965 and 66. These were rather uncontrolled experiments in taking LSD to open up what the author Aldous Huxley had called ‘The Doors of Perception’. They caused concern to some psychologists who were involved in research into the effects of the drug. Partly owing to the acid tests, LSD became a central feature of the anti-war, peacenik, hippie subculture 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 the acid tests and their link to Psychology at this link.
Ack pirates
Those who plied their trade on fresh water, often the Thames in London. Their US equivalents were known less eccentrically as river pirates.
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.
Alienist
Once used as a term for what today we would call a psychiatrist. Psychiatric patients used to be referred to as ‘aliens’. It comes from the Latin ‘alius’, meaning ‘other’. The term is still sometimes used in the US, to mean a psychiatrist who assesses the competence of a defendant to take part in criminal proceedings.
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’.
Anchor
Stay of execution.
Antifreeze
Heroin. For some of these drug-related terms (of which I’ve supplied a few) you have to wonder whether users just pick random nouns out of the dictionary.
Antinomianism
Religious view that the size of God’s grace or forgiveness is greater than that of our sin. The term originally referred just to the Christian faith but has been extended to others. Faith alone is enough to ensure salvation. This view has been interpreted to mean that anything a believer does is justified by their belief in God. It has been held – consciously and unconsciously - by many zealots to absolve them from any requirement to follow God’s law or that of the state.
Apache
Fentanyl.
April
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘weapon’, by way of ‘April fool’ – ‘tool’.
Argy-bargy
Heated argument. Term often used when the argument may turn to violence. Scots term from the 19th century, based on simple word-play around ‘argument’.
Around the turn
Withdrawal from addiction to hard drugs.
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’.
Autem cackle tub
Flash term - meeting-house for dissenters; place for outlaws to meet.
Autem divers
Flash term - Dishonest church warders, or those who practice the dub lay in church.
B
Babes in the wood
Those who have been caught and sentenced to the pillory.
Bacon head
Prison slang for paedophile or nonce.
Badger game
Short con – a woman, possibly appearing to be a sex worker, brings a mark back to a hotel room or similar. A man pretending to be her husband appears and demands payment.
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.
Badmash
As an adjective, naughty or misbehaving. As a noun, a notorious person or hooligan. Brought into the English language from Urdu during the years of the Raj.
Bag
American term for police uniform.
Bait
Roadman slang for annoying or troublesome. No, really, it’s an adjective.
Ball
Verb: to put cocaine into one’s vagina.
Ballumn ranorum
Flash entertainment: a dance at which all the females are prostitutes. Dance held in a flash ken.
Balsom
Flash term for money.
Bamber
Mistake made by a police officer.
Bamboozle
May derive from the Scots, bumbaze, meaning to perplex. Bumbaze itself may come from a French word, embabouiner, which means ‘to make a baboon of’.
Banbury
Presumably named after the town in England, this is a flash term meaning to strike up an acquaintance with a stranger and travel together until such time as one recognises an opportunity to steal their belongings.
Bank Note Detectors
Books carried around by the wary in the American frontier. They listed all the ‘banks’ that issued money, telling you which ones were real, which ones were not, and which bank notes you ought to avoid. That tells you how regular 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 often dark glasses. He sometimes has a skull for a face. Included here because he’s known as the father of the underworld, who provides 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.
Bart Simpson
LSD.
Bear-garden discourse
According to the New Universal English Dictionary of 1760, this meant common, nasty, filthy talk.
Beige
Verb: use one’s chemistry skills to change the colour of cocaine.
Belushi
Cocaine mixed with heroin.
Beretta lobotomy
Shooting oneself in the head.
Beshrew
To curse, or attempt to bring down evil. In voodoo, crossing.
Billy Sunday
Baseball player and evangelical Christian whose voice – raised loudly against the evils of liquor – was important in passing the Eighteenth Amendment and bringing in US Prohibition: miserable for anyone who liked a glass of wine with their dinner, but wonderful for gangsters. So well-known did Billy Sunday become that anti-alcohol campaigners became known by the occasional nickname ‘Billy Sundays’.
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 rock
Crack cocaine
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 hero
Heroin
Blue law
Law put in place in numerous Western countries to prevent immorality on Sundays. After all, only the worst kind of people would want to spend the day visiting friend, shopping, 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 now in reference to music. Or adjective, as in ‘Would you care to sample 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 the 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.
Bowdlerise
A censored version of Shakespeare was published in 1818 by the English physician Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825). He removed everything that could not ‘with propriety be read to the family’. The act of removing offensive passages of literature thereafter become associated with his name. Interestingly, the use of the word has fallen off dramatically since about the year 2000, which is precisely the period during which the word ‘censorship’ lost the negative connotations it had previously had. There may be a link.
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 highwayman or footpad. The bush ranger generally worked on foot, rather than horseback, and was sometimes treated, in that nation of impressive 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
California Sunshine
LSD (see also Acid Test).
Capeman, The
Two related meanings: i) Salvador Agrón, member of the Brooklyn gang, The Vampires. Murdered two teenagers in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen in 1959, under the false impression that they were members of a rival gang. Became the youngest person ever sent to Death Row in New York. There he became a born-again Christian, before escaping. He was recaptured and tried for the escape, but found not guilty because of mental illness. ii) Musical based on the life of Agrón, created largely by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott. Neither had any experience of writing or staging musicals, and Simon, in particular, had often been critical of Broadway productions. Despite receiving nominations for Tony Awards, The Capeman became one of the worst flops in Broadway history, although Simon’s music mostly had good notices. The interested reader can check this link out, although it definitely has too many ads.
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 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.
Child of God
Novel by the American author, Cormac McCarthy, about a necrophiliac named Lester Ballard. It contains one of the most chilling lines in modern fiction, in which McCarthy tells us that Ballard is ‘a child of God much like yourself perhaps’.
Chokey
Prison, or a term of imprisonment.
Chomo
Child molester
Cigar-store battery
Shop set up in the southern parts of Manhattan during the 19th 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 classic novel Clockers.
Cloture
Rule 22, passed under President Wilson in 1917, allowed discussion in the US Senate of a piece of legislation to be closed off, or ended, as long as a petition to do so was presented by 16 senators, and approved by two-thirds of the senators present and voting. This was an attempt – not to end, but at least to limit - filibustering. The author Joseph Heller would have approved of Rule 22, and not just because of its number. It only worked on any pending measure. Other Senate rules, though, required a motion in order to make a measure pending. Senators who wanted to indulge in a little filibustering therefore filibustered the discussion about making the measure pending, rather than the discussion of the measure itself. Hence Rule 22 legislated against itself – any attempt to change Rule 22 in order to put a limit on filibustering could itself be filibustered at the stage when senators were discussing the motion to make it pending.
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. There is little blood in such stories, 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 8,640 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, the heads of other families. The Commission appears still to be around, and 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 obscene 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.
Consequentialism
Philosophical view that the ethical value of an act derives from its consequences rather than from the nature of the act itself. Hence the exact same action may be morally right or wrong, depending on circumstances. Contrasts with deontology.
Courts of Miracles (cours de miracles)
Hideouts of seventeenth 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.
Covent Garden Nun
A woman working at the Great Square of Venus.
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 just biologically criminal, because they were atavistic throwback to earlier stages of human evolution. They both 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.
Cunny warren
18th century slang for brothel.
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 the people running the operation.
D
Dankrupt
Under the influence of marijuana.
Dark figure
It is difficult to know how much crime actually happens. There will always be a gap between official counts and the true number. No one knows how big the gap is. That is 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.
Data streaming
Creation of fake credit cards by fraudulent means, using information gathered by means of hacking. Done by blackhats.
Day plunderer
A man who would help unload a ship for free, in the hope of making off with as much plunder as possible, often concealed in the crown of the hat or down the 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 in honour of the murder of Wild Bill Hickock, lawman, shootist, and all-round prevaricator who was killed by the gambler Jack McCall while playing poker in Deadwood, South Dakota. Supposedly, Hickock was holding this hand when he died (uncharacteristically failing to sit with his back to 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
A 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.
Deontology
Strictly, the study of the origins of ethics. Usually used to mean the philosophical position that some acts are right or wrong owing to the nature of the act itself rather than its possible or probable consequences. Contrasts with consequentialism.
Deuce
(i) Nickname for 42nd Street in Manhattan, once New York City’s pit of iniquity. (ii) Drunk driver. (iii) Another word for ‘devil’. Make of this coincidence what you will.
Devil’s dandruff
Cocaine.
Diesel
Tea served in UK prisons.
Digital fentanyl
Provocative name given in later 2022 by Congressman Mike Gallagher to the social media site TikTok.
Ding-dong
Heated argument. Comes from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Roughly equivalent to argy bargy.
Driving award
See paperwork.
Dub-lay
Obsolete slang for pickpocketing.
Dynamite
Heroin mixed with cocaine
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’. The word 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 unhappily 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, a soul banished from Hell.
File
Flash term for pickpocket.
Filibuster
Measure used by politicians to prevent a bill from being voted on, and thereafter passed into legislation. It simply consists of talking and talking and talking, often about unrelated issues, until it is too late. The term is strongly associated with the US Senate. (Bear with me, this gets interesting.) For 111 years after 1806, there was only one way to stop a US senator from talking. It was by unanimous consent, but of course that was never going to happen (at least some senators would be on the side of the filibuster after all). This spoiling tactic got its name from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means what it sounds like – freebooter. That word passed into Spanish as filibustero, because the ships used by Caribbean pirates was called a filibote. Because the process of speaking forever in a legislative chamber was like piracy, or hijacking, it became filibuster. See also cloture.
Film noir
The best kind of film: think of Out of the Past, Sunset Boulevard, Night of the Hunter. Made largely in the expressionist style by film-makers who were exiled from Nazi Germany during the Second World War, these films are characterised by heavy shadows, moody lighting, and terse, hard-bitten dialogue. Their popularity was not hurt by the fact that these films came along at about the same time as pulp crime fiction reached its most popular point. Chandler, Hammet, and Goodis got involved; so, too, did Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. Many of the classics were based on novels by members of the hard boiled school.
Fish
Prison newbie
Fish Tank
American prisons’ intake processing unit.
Flake
Street name for cocaine.
Flash
18th century English thieves’ cant or argot. It’s mostly obsolete now, but 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.
Flash cove
Thief.
Flash for cash
Traffic camera.
Flash ken
Brothel.
Flash mollisher
Low order of Covent Garden Nun, working at the Great Square of Venus.
Foolish powder
Street name for heroin.
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 extremely safe, we may compensate on others.
Frenchified
Infected with syphilis (the ‘French disease’), usually as a result of prostitution or other sex work.
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.
GSR
Gun Shot Residue, left behind after firing a gun.
Game-ship
One targeted by Light-Horsemen.
Gammon
Flash term. Two or more people may be involved in pickpocketing. The file steals the victim’s wallet while others jostled them about, so that they don’t notice. Those who do the jostling were known as Gammons.
Gate fever
Prisoner’s excitement as the end of their term approaches.
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.
Gooseberry ranch
Now obsolete US slang – brothel.
Grass-eater
Cop (particularly in the NYPD) who takes part in minor corruption. Cf meat-eater.
Great Square of Venus, The
Area around Covent Garden in London in general, and Drury Lane in particular. For about 200 years from the 16th century onwards, a great centre of the metropolis’ sex trade.
Green death
American term for marijuana, 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 meanings: 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 portrait of the nature of evil and 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 invested to account of the remarkable persistence of violence. The idea is that the frontier days imbued later history with a ‘template of violence’ which has formed its pattern ever since.
H
Half-inch
Cockney rhyming slang for steal, by way of ‘pinch’.
Hamartophobia
Fear of sin.
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 the crimes.
Hard Case Crime
Interesting crime-fiction imprint, publishing both new and classic – often re-discovered – novels in their highly distinctive white-red-black colours with gold tag. Painted covers hark back to the good old days of pulp fiction.
Harman
Flash term for police constable. See also Bobby and Peeler.
Heave a booth
Flash term for burgling a house.
Helping police with their enquiries
Euphemism dating to a period of great public politeness, meaning ‘under arrest’.
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 hugely at trial by former Manson Family member, Paul Watkins. He claimed that 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. The journalist Tom O’Neill, in his book Chaos, expresses scepticism.
Henry VIII
Cocaine. This comes not via the idea that it takes your head off, but via the measure – one eighth of an ounce.
Herbivore
Heavy or regular user of marijuana.
Hillbilly heroin
Oxycontin – a prescription pain medicine.
Hobbit
Compliant, well-behaved prisoner.
Hoosegow
Informal American term for prison.
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 place during the Great Depression. Cf. Hooverville
Hooverville
American version of a shantytown, erected during the Great Depression. Cf. Hoover flag
Horror
The horror genre is considered by fans to belong inside the ‘fantasy’ circle on the great Venn diagram of literature. That doesn’t prevent it overlapping the crime fiction circle. The vital point is that both genres require there to be some source of evil, (or at least danger). In either genre, evil may come from either inside or outside. An example of ‘inside’ horror is Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde; an example of ‘outside’ horror is Dracula. A similar differentiation occurs in the crime story: compare, say, Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me with any Sherlock Holmes adventure. This may be why so many of either genre’s best writers seem to find it easy to slip into the other. Indeed, Edgar Allan Poe had a hand in inventing both. The Venn diagram’s most consistent wanderer may be Robert Bloch, author of such suspense-horror novels as Psycho and Firebug. You could think, too, of that one-man industry, Stephen King, usually thought of as a horror novelist, but who often publishes in the Hard Case Crime imprint.
Horrorism
Term coined by the 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 is 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.
House Select Committee on Assassinations
It is often forgotten that the Warren Commission was not the only large-scale official investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. The HSCA concluded in 1979 that Lee Harvey Oswald did indeed fire the bullets that killed the President, but that, contra the Warren Commission, at least one other gunman probably fired at him, too. It claimed that there was probably a conspiracy, but did not point the finger at any of the usual suspects – organised crime, Cuban refugees, Fidel Castro, the Soviet government, etc. The HSCA agreed broadly with single bullet theory and levelled criticism at both the CIA and FBI for their handling of the case. Right here is a link that – if you are new to Kennedy-assassination literature - will plunge you into a rabbit-hole.
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 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. vi) Title of one of the outstanding novels in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series.
Instant Zen
LSD
J
J-cat
Two meanings here: i) American prison slang for an inmate who is suffering some form of psychological disorder. Ii) Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce.
JD
Juvenile Delinquent. By 1956, US authorities were arresting over a million teenagers a year. It seemed as if something new and unprecedented was happening. And it was. The media as much as the teenagers themselves created the phenomenon of the juvenile delinquent. ‘What are you rebelling against?’ Replied Marlon Brando, ‘What have you got?’
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.
Jokes
Roadman slang for events that are not especially amusing.
Joy house
US slang for brothel.
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 contender 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.
Jumper
Specialist thief who takes property from offices.
Justice-involved person
Modern euphemism for felon.
K
Kanga
Cockney rhyming slang for prison officer, by way of ‘kangaroo’ – screw.
KE
See QE, which the author prefers because QE just sounds better.
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 that hs been created or collected for the purpose of blackmail. Usually used when politicians or other influential public figures are involved.
Krunked
Splendid word, meaning under the influence of marijuana.
L
L-WOP
American prison 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’.
Leary
LSD – via the Harvard psychologist and counter-culture hero of the 1960s, Timothy Leary.
Leather slapping
The drawing of a handgun from a holster, usually applied with reference to gunmen of the Old West.
Left-handed cigarette
Marijuana joint.
Leg bail
American: to run away from police. Cf. Jackrabbit parole.
Legend
Term used by the CIA. It means 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 stole 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 truthfulness. Stands for Load Of Bollocks.
Long drop
Innovation in hanging made by William Marwood,, who worked in the UK 1874- 1883. He brought a degree of science to his craft, such that victims of hanging would either break their necks and die immediately, or else suffer a dislocation of vertebrae in the neck, with a resultant anaesthetic effect. Previous hangmen (Marwood preferred to call himself an ‘executioner’) had used a ‘short drop’, which left the victims dying in agony for some time.
Longrider
Wild West outlaw or bandit, so called because they spent a lot 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. 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
Mad hatter
Drug dealer
Magic bullet theory
Another term for single bullet theory.
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.
Mark
The sucker in a confidence trick.
Mate of Death
Term often used in Germany to refer to a city’s executioner, who often doubled as its chief torturer. Other terms included Suspensor and Scharfrichter.
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, and 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 not 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.
Memphis Mafia
Ever-changing entourage of Elvis Presley, including quite a range of extras from his life-story. Some were family-members, some were hangers-on, some were both, neither, or in between. Some were directly employed; others subsisted on such benefits as free cars and even houses. Very few members of the Memphis Mafia were ever women.
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 a person 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, in a psychedelically-painted bus with the word Furthur at the front in place of a destination. The Merry Pranksters were responsible, along with the rock band The Grateful Dead, for the notorious Acid Tests.
Meth mouth
A common symptom of prolonged methamphetamine abuse is witches teeth. Severe gum disease with either tooth decay or missing teeth. Close to 100% of meth users have cavities; more than half have untreated tooth decay; about a third have missing teeth. There can also be damage to the actual jawbone.
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-molester’ 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. Murder ballads 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. The 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 interviewee 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.
Neon nod
Heroin and LSD
New Journalism, The
Type developed in the 1960s and 70s, featuring such elements as 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 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.
No-tell hotel
See hot-sheet motel.
Nonce
A prisoner who was found guilty of sexual crimes, especially ones involving children. The word has connotations of contempt and potential violence towards the prisoner – 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.
Nose candy
Cocaine
Nub
Verb, to hang.
Nut
Expenses incurred in casing a jug.
O
Obbo
Abbreviation of ‘observation’: in this sense, by police of criminal activity.
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 nitro-glycerine.
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 lag
A person seeking lawful status who has been imprisoned many times, or for a long period of time.
Old Nick; Old Scratch
The devil.
On the shoot
Cowboy term meaning ‘looking for trouble’.
One-fifty-one
US slang for crack cocaine, probably derived from a US penal code number. See also 5150.
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 country artists including Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. Fans often date the movement to Jennings’ Ladies Love Outlaws (1972). Many felt that mainstream country music had become somewhat anodyne by the 1970s and 80s. The outlaw country 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, for a while, the most successful country record ever pressed. You can read more right here, hoss.
Owl Hoot Trail
Wild-West outlaw lifestyle.
Owned
Internet and roadman slang – defeated in some way.
P
Pad
Three meanings: (i) Regular, systematic pay-off to police. I haven’t seen this term used except with reference to the NYPD; (ii) Drugs or other illicit or stolen material added to a haul in order to make an unscrupulous police officer look good; (iii) Prison cell.
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.
Pentiti
Italian term for grass, or informant. Usually refers to those who inform against the Mafia or other criminal organisations. The term became well-known in English-speaking countries after the famous Maxi show-trials of the 1980s.
Perp walk
When a detainee is taken into a police station in such a way that the press can see and photograph it. It makes for good publicity. Devised in early 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’.
Phoney
Derives from ‘fawney man’, a peddler of what might now be called slum jewellery. Fainne is an Irish term for a ring.
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.
Plunderbund
Group of interested parties that come together for the purpose of making an unethical profit from the public.
Pluries
Third writ in a series, issued after the first two have been ignored or proven ineffective.
Pocket advantage
Small gun carried half-cocked in the coat pocket. It can be drawn and fired before one’s opponent has time to react. Term from the Wild West.
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 used in the United Nations.
Police procedural
Genre of crime fiction concentrating, as the name suggests, on the actual police investigation of a crime. Authors in this genre set themselves the daunting task of making details not just of the investigation but also of the cops’ lives interesting for the reader. The invention of the genre is usually credited to Ed McBain (Salvatore Lombino), whose 87th Precinct books remain among the very best examples of the genre. You can read much more about the police procedural right here.
Pop
Verb, meaning to use oil or other explosives to open a bank vault door without express permission of the manager.
Potrepreneur
Dealer in marijuana
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 there 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 provides a skill which may be useful on release. Check it out here.
Prog
Beg, pilfer, scrounge, or steal. The objects of theft are generally the stuff of life, such as food.
Provo
Slang for member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
Provocation
In espionage, an action designed to force one’s opponent into a particular behaviour or response, of which one can then take advantage.
Prushun
US slang - a boy who travels with a hobo, commits minor crimes for him, such as theft, 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, which nevertheless seems to have got a hold of the literature.
Pulp fiction
So called because it used to be printed on the cheap, using rough, low-quality paper stock made from second-rate wood pulp. Everyone knows what pulp fiction is, but, like ‘free will’ or ‘personality’ it’s difficult to define. There are some common elements though: fast action, tough heroes, snappy dialogue, probably a derringer or two, and a focus on crime or suspense. You’d hope to see a hero on the cover wearing a fedora, and probably a blonde in the distance, generally in some sort of peril.
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.
QE
A criminal turns Queen’s Evidence (or, today, King’s) against their accomplices in order to benefit from a lighter sentence.
Quisling
Particular kind of trait – 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.
Red-light bandit, the
Two meanings: i) Name given to Caryl Chessman, infamous post-War Los Angeles criminal who used to pose as a motorised policeman, waving a red light from his car. He was involved in robbery, kidnapping, and rape. Chessman was arrested on 23 January, 1948; ii) Title of countercultural film made under Brazilian dictatorship by the then-21 year old director Rogerio Sganzerla. It comes across like a mislocated film noir, with its focus on the life of crime, the role of the city, and generalised sense of doom.
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 teenager and usually from London. Roadmen have their own slang, some of which you will find here.
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 he went off and invented more. You can read more about it here.
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. This site is worth a look: The 8 Worst Slums Of Victorian London - London Walks
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.
S
Saltimbanco
A 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 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 running 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 twentieth century when the thinner belt became known as a suicide strap, thereby lessening its appeal.
Samizdat
A kind of forgery or evasion of censorship, whereby people copy and distribute literature that the state has banned. The term is most closely associated with the former Communist countries of eastern Europe.
Sandbag
To lower expectations for some dubious reason or another: for example, to make an opponent think a game will be easier than it is, or to make one’s customers think a company is less profitable, in order to cause excitement when it apparently does well. It’s common in politics: candidates sometimes keep expectations low so that they can impress us by ‘confounding’ them.
Satan’s Circus
Manhattan district, Fortieth Street south to Twenty-fourth, between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, once notorious for brothels.
Screw
Slang for 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 not work,’ it was said, ‘neither shall he eat’). The handle just dragged a paddle through some gravel. As the prisoner grew stronger, the warder could tighten the ‘screw’ on the outside of the wall to make the job more difficult. Cf Kanga.
Screwball
Heroin and meth.
Scuffle-hunter
Type of portside manual labourer in London who tended to be engaged in actively stealing merchandise rather than loading it off or onto merchant 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.
Sea food
Nickname given to US naval personnel by male sex workers on the West Coast.
Sexsomnia
Rare psychological syndrome in which a person has sex while asleep. Sexsomnia has been linked to a cumber of sex crimes, including rape.
Shakedown
American slang for blackmail.
Sheriff’s ball
American term for occasions when executions have been turned into paying attractions.
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.
Shoe
Or SHU – Secure Housing Unit in a prison.
Shootist
Contemporaneous Old West term for someone we would call a ‘gunfighter’ today.
Shoulder-surf
To steal PIN numbers at cashpoints by looking over people’s shoulders.
Sicily of Spain
Nickname among law-enforcement officials for 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 behaviour on the part of the criminal, over and above what was necessary to commit the crime. If modus operandi is how the criminal committed the crime, signature helps tell us why.
Single-bullet theory
Not so much a scientific ‘theory’ as a proposal. Credited to a member of the Warren Commission called Arlen Specter, single-bullet theory proposes to solve some of the puzzles to do with ballistics evidence in the Kennedy assassination, by suggesting that the same bullet that went through the President’s neck may also have caused injuries to Governor Connally, sitting in front of him. Not unnaturally, single-bullet theory was and remains controversial. Also known, somewhat dismissively, as ‘magic bullet theory’.
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 in the Wild West.
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, who specialises in routes to the West.
Snake-oil salesman
One who trades in useless medicines or other scams to do with healthcare. 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 mixture 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. Essentially, a modern word for Quacksalver.
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.
Sorry
Cockney rhyming slang for ‘bad’, by way of ‘sorry and sad’.
Somnabulism
Syndrome in which a person literally walks while asleep. Crimes committed while asleep include anything up to and including somnambulistic homicide. See also sexsomnia.
Snollygoster
Merriam-Webster has this as ‘an unprincipled but shrewd person’. Not much used where I live. Term seems to date from late 19th century America. Early uses of it have it referring to politicians who want office regardless of what they have to do to get it.
Starrer
That particular type of thief, much less common now owing to burglar alarms, who used to smash jewellers’ windows and steal their merchandise. The term probably derives from the ‘starring’ effect on the glass as it gets thwacked.
Stegophily
See Urban climbing.
‘Stop me before I kill again’
This well-known phrase is a light misquote. A 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 still believe he may have been innocent of the crimes for which he was committed. The phrase may have been popularised by the 1960 film, Stop me Before I Kill!, starring Claude Dauphin.
Stormy petrel
Person who enjoys controversy or argument for its own sake.
Suck-start a rifle
US military slang for committing suicide by shooting oneself in the head.
SUD
Medical acronym - Sudden Unexpected Death. The usual cause turns out to be heart attack or haemorrhage or something else readily identifiable. Nevertheless it has been used as an explanation for psychophysiological death.
Suicide blonde
‘Dyed by her own hand’.
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 rather obvious reasons, suicide straps fell out of favour in the middle years of the 20th century.
Superflu
Symptoms of withdrawal from addiction to hard drugs.
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 the area of Manhattan – Sixth Avenue and the streets around it, roughly congruent to Satan’s Circus. This 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, now still a high-crime area, featuring seven out of the ten highest-crime areas in the 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’m not 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 made perfect by the London criminal, Jonathan Wild, who made himself rich turning criminals in and collecting the reward for crime 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
A corpse put into the back of a car. The corpse probably belonged to someone who got on the wrong side of organised criminals. The term seems to refer to the gurgling noise that 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 certain forces have tried to cover up. The term is closely associated with ‘moon truthers’, who believe that astronauts 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
Umbrella Man
Two meanings for this unusual phrase: i) Louie Witt, identified in photographs taken in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, at the site of the Kennedy assassination. He was relatively close to the President when the assassination happened, and considered suspicious because he was holding an umbrella on a day that had clear skies. It turned out he was simply trying to invoke memories of Neville Chamberlain, UK Prime Minister sometimes seen as an appeaser of Nazis, who had been supported by JFK’s father, Joseph P Kennedy Sr. Opening the umbrella was interpreted by some as a sign to the gunman to ‘shoot now’; ii) Tony Hernandez, once president of Brooklyn gang the Vampires, who recruited Salvador Agron, who later became famous as the Capeman. Used an umbrella with a sharpened tip as a weapon in street fights. Mentioned briefly in Paul Simon’s musical, The Capeman.
Undies
Undercover police officers, of course.
Unsub
Abbreviation of ‘unknown subject of investigation’ – ‘the villain we are looking for. Term used originally by the FBI, it seems, because giving a nickname to the villain was considered bad form.
Up the river
The way to prison, or going to prison. Comes ultimately from the location of Sing Sing Prison, on the Hudson River.
Upbraid
Verb: scold. Based on an Old English word meaning to claim that someone has done something worthy of punishment, or to allege that they have been involved in unworthy activity.
Urban climbing
Pastime involving climbing buildings or other artificial structures. Often illegal. Another term for ‘stegophily’.
V
Vakabon
Much like English ‘vagabond’. This Creole word means 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. It is more difficult to know whether the trust their answer, because they may be keen to have you think that they are virtuous people who could never be blackmailed. Official crime statistics are often lacking is validity and well as reliability.
‘Vengeful Society’, the
Term invented by the journalist Timothy Appleby to refer to the US since the execution of Gary Gilmore in 1976. There was a glut of executions in the years immediately afterwards.
Vex
To make someone angry, of course. The term seemed to go out of a fashion for a long time but is now back as part of roadman slang.
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 in the early 20th century by anthropologists, seems to have stuck. This may be because alternative and related terms such as thanatomania and psychophysiological death are just so much less imaginative, let alone the difficulty you might have pronouncing them.
VPU
Vulnerable Prisoner Unit.
W
Wand waver
Male flasher.
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 is or was travelling.
Warren Commission
Official investigation by the US government into the assassination of President Kennedy, and the source of many conspiracy theories (some of which may well be true). The Commission was appointed by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. It was headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who reportedly did not want the job at all. Among its members were President-to-be Gerald Ford, Arlen Specter, who came up with single bullet theory, and, most controversially, Allen Dulles of the CIA. Given that some pointed the finger at the CIA in the first place as one possible suspect, this last appointment has been discussed at particular length. The Commission lasted from 5 December 1963 to 24 September 1964. It dealt with 5-600 witnesses (as you might have started to suspect, there were important omissions) and over 3000 reports. The Commission reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin who committed his crime with no help from anyone. There was no conspiracy, it said, which is exactly what you would expect it to say, some responded, if there was a conspiracy. Hence, the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Wet job
Also, sometimes, ‘wet work’. An assassination, usually one carried out on behalf of a government or government agency. Occasionally used in the context of an organised-crime hit. English translation of a term used by the Russian KGB.
Whack
Cocaine mixed with angel dust.
White hat
A ‘good’ hacker, who tests out the security of computer system. Cf black hat
White rock
Cocaine (not crack)
White shotgun
Translation of the Italian term lupara bianca. It refers to the assassination of an enemy of organised crime – often informants or pentiti – who disappears without trace.
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. Even before that, Hollywood had started to use the A-shirt as a shorthand way of conveying certain of a character’s traits to the audience, however. Hollywood again – Bruce Willis wears one almost the whole way through the movie Die Hard.
‘Wild Bill’
Sobriquet adopted by just about every American called William who has had anything to do with the legal system: outlaw, peace officer, spy. Examples include lawman, actor, and all around rampallion, Wild Bill Hickock; shootist Wild Bill Longley; and CIA founder Wild Bill Donovan. Don’t forget jazz musicians Wild Bill Davis and Wild Bill Davison.
Wilderness of mirrors
Arresting phrase used by quondam poet and legendary CIA operative, James Jesus Angleton, to refer to his world of counter-espionage.
Witches teeth
Decayed or rotting teeth are a symptom of prolonged methamphetamine abuse. See Meth mouth.
‘With great power comes great responsibility’
In the case of most authors who have had a decided and notable effect on the culture, on 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 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 row
Another term for Death Row, used because all the inmates there are ‘nameless’.
X’d out
American, gang-related. Comes from the term ‘crossed out’ – like the name of a rival gang member that someone has been authorised to murder.
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, they 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.
Yimyom
Fentanyl.
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.
Yob
Young, loutish fellow. Backslang from boy.
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
ZeroZeroZero
The purest cocaine available, 24-carat, dyed-in-the-wool. Rock solid; dope. Named after flour – the finest-milled you can find; the kind you use to make pasta. Also, book by Roberto Saviano about the intercontinental cocaine trade, and Sky television series based on it.
Zip
Two meanings: i) Derogatory term used by US mafiosi to refer to a Sicilian counterparts; ii) Methamphetamine.
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
Two meanings: i) Police officer who is either lazy, close to retirement, or both; ii) Someone who is constantly high on illegal drugs.
Zone of transition
Area of city identified by certain sociologists as that in which the most crime occurs. It is an undesirable place to live, but has cheap housing, which new migrants to the city can afford. It also has short commutes to the factories. As soon as they have saved enough money, they can move out again. Hence few stay there long, and even fewer have an investment in the area. It is usually located just outside the Central Business District.
Zoned
Under the influence of marijuana (same as dankrupt and krunked).
Zoomer
A drug dealer who isn’t. Sells crack cocaine that isn’t, either, and then runs away fast.
Zulu
Fake crack cocaine, often sold by a zoomer.
Oh my god, this is pure gold.