chokey

Borrowed from Hindi चौकी (caukī) and Urdu چَوکی (caukī, “post, police station, etc.”).


cellblock

The cellblock where the men were held was close enough to the holding tank, where the women were all kept together, for us to hear much of what happened there.

1983 December 24, Larry Goldsmith, “Cops Bust 70 Anti-Nuke Demonstrators”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 23, page 6:

A wing of a prison containing cells for the inmates.


familicide

en-noun

familicide (countable and uncountable, plural familicides)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-familicide.wav

Because of the familicide that wiped out his entire family, he will be charged with six counts of murder.

Familicide is the murder of family members by another family member. In other words, familicide is a multiple-victim homicide in which the killer's spouse or partner and one or more children are killed. Although familicide is relatively rare, it is nevertheless the most common form of mass killing.

2014, Albert Lee Strickland, “Familicide”, in Michael John Brennan, editor, The A–Z of Death and Dying: Social, Medical, and Cultural Aspects, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 204:

The murder of an entire family by a family member.


cooping

The restriction (1835) of the time of voting to one day reduced the practice of cooping.

1907, William Page, The Victoria history of the county of Suffolk, volume 2:

Cooping, the political version of the shanghai, involved kidnapping citizens […]

1977, Aubrey C. Land, Lois Green Carr, Edward C. Papenfuse, Morris Leon Radoff, Law, society, and politics in early Maryland:

The Tories also engaged in "cooping," intimidating people into voting Tory.

2001, Paul Knepper, Explaining criminal conduct: theories and systems in criminology:

Since then, there have been many other theories, including death from delirium tremens, mugging, and "cooping" (the electioneering practice of kidnapping and holding people in rooms, plying them with alcohol and/or opium and then forcing them to vote repeatedly at different locations).

2014, Corinna Wagner, editor, Gothic Evolutions: Poetry, Tales, Context, Theory:

The practice of forcing unwilling participants to vote, often several times over, for a particular candidate in an election.


reattribution

reattribution (countable and uncountable, plural reattributions)

To professionals in the world of art, reattribution is not necessarily pejorative, even though it is often perceived that way by the general public. Reattribution can upgrade a work as well as downgrade it.

1994, John E. Conklin, Art Crime, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 54:

(art, crime) The process of determining whether artwork is real or fake, and, if fake, determining when and by whom it was created.


inspectorate

From inspector + -ate (forms nouns denoting a rank or office, a body of people performing it, the concrete charge of it).

af

What makes a great primary? Let's deal with this one straight away – it isn't what Ofsted says. All the inspectorate has cared about in the past few years is data progression in maths and literacy.

2014 September 23, A teacher, “Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents”, in The Guardian:

Once the next stage of funding is agreed, EWR Co will submit the DCO [Development Consent Order] application to the Planning Inspectorate, which will examine the proposals (during which time the public can comment on the application).

2023 November 15, Chris Howe, “East West Rail and the Cambridge connection”, in RAIL, number 996, page 57:


inside job

... while the police are calling it an inside job just because the old lady's nephew teaches a Bible class.

1908, O. Henry, The Complete Works of O. Henry [pseud.].: The gentle grafter, page 142:

It seems to me it must have been what the police at home call "an inside job"; because whoever it was apparently knew the combination of the safe.

1921, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 10, in Alias The Lone Wolf:

In Britain, where the British BeeKeepers Association (BBKA) has been urging members to microchip their hives for some time, the continuing mystery and the belief that the crimes are inside jobs are taking their toll.

2017 September 23, “From north Wales to Norfolk, distraught beekeepers ask: who’s stealing our hives?”, in The Observer:

(idiomatic, criminology) A crime or other illicit action committed by or with the assistance of someone either having a relationship with a victim or entrusted with access to the victim's affairs and premises.


kleptocrat

The difference between a kleptocrat and a wise statesman is merely on of degree: a matter of just how large a percentage of the tribute extracted from producers is retained by the elite, and how much the commoners appreciate the public uses to which the redistributed tribute is put.

1997, Diamond Jered, Guns, Germs, and Steel, W. W. Norton & Co, page 276:

Kleptocrats pose a serious threat to global security as this money can be used for espionage, terrorism, political manipulation, disinformation, and many other nefarious purposes.

2024 September 27, Jess Daly, Russia Evading US Sanctions Through Shell Companies, UNITED24 Media, retrieved 2024-10-02:


juvenile delinquent

en-noun

juvenile delinquent (plural juvenile delinquents)

This cow-creamer, in case you're interested, was a silver jug or pitcher or whatever you call it shaped, of all silly things, like a cow with an arching tail and a juvenile-delinquent expression on its face, a cow that looked as if it were planning, next time it was milked, to haul off and let the milkmaid have it in the lower ribs.

1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII:

(law) A persistent young offender; an antisocial minor, one who has committed criminal acts such as theft or violence.


DT

DT (countable and uncountable, plural DTs)

(law enforcement) Abbreviation of (police) detective.


mounted police

A unit of the civil police who are specifically trained to serve duty on horseback. Their duties can be ceremonial, or often for crowd control, and to police areas of difficult access or wilderness areas.


riot police

A unit of the police specifically trained to deal with rioting crowds. They use special equipment for personal defense as well as for crowd control and dispersal.

policia antiavalots

a unit of police specifically trained to deal with rioting crowds

polícija po oxráne obščéstvennovo porjádka

поли́ция по охра́не обще́ственного поря́дка


FI

FI (countable and uncountable, plural FIs)

(law enforcement) Initialism of field interview/interrogation.


swarming

(colloquial, Canada) A crime where an unsuspecting innocent bystander is attacked by several culprits at once, with no known motive.


police dog

A man who attacked three police officers and a police dog at Nottingham on April 4 has pleaded guilty to two counts of actual bodily harm, assault with intent to resist arrest, assault of an emergency worker, possession of a bladed article, possession of an offensive weapon, and causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.

2020 April 22, “Network News: Man attacks BTP officers after being refused travel”, in Rail, page 11:

A dog trained and employed by the police to pursue suspects or sniff out contraband.


K-9 unit

Humorous homophone of canine from an old vaudeville show.

(US) A police dog or a police dog and its handler.


junk science

junk science (countable and uncountable, plural junk sciences)

His testimony was worse than science fiction: it was junk science.

Tom Hockaday was an APCO employee, and March 1993 found him working closely with Philip Morris vice president Ellen Merlo to develop scientific articles to defend secondhand smoke and promote the idea that the EPA work was “junk science.”

2010, Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, chapter 5, in Merchants of Doubt:

Climate policy is being dragged into the culture wars with misinformation and junk science being spread across the internet by a relatively small group of individuals and groups, according to a study.

2022 June 9, Matthew Taylor, “Climate policy dragged into culture wars as a ‘delay’ tactic, finds study”, in The Guardian:

Our field falls neither in the category of immediately acceptable DNA experts at one end of the spectrum nor in the category of the immediately unacceptable so-called junk sciences at the other end.

2006, Roger W. Shuy, Linguistics in the Courtroom: A Practical Guide, page 99:

(derogatory) Assertions or methods that have the appearance, but not the actuality, of scientific legitimacy.


criminal record

criminal record (plural criminal records)

A record of the past crimes of which someone has been convicted.


high treason

(law) In some jurisdictions, a criminal offence of treason including features regarded as more severe than ordinary treason.


insurance fraud

insurance fraud (countable and uncountable, plural insurance frauds)

Some people have committed insurance fraud by setting their houses on fire and claiming that the fire was an accident.

(law) Receiving insurance policy-based compensation by deceitfully causing an event that, if it were accidental, would lead to a rightful claim for said compensation.

vakuutuspetos

receiving insurance policy-based compensation by deceitfully causing an event that, if it were accidental, would lead to a rightful claim for said compensation


prison cell

The room to which a prisoner is confined in a prison.


police blotter

(US) A register, maintained by the desk sergeant, of people arrested or brought in for questioning to a police station; (UK) charge sheet.


shell game

Another common form of short con is the shell game. This scam has the advantage of giving the criminal the ability to rip off many marks all at one location.

2009, Michael Benson, Cons and Frauds, Infobase, →ISBN, page 21:

A game of skill which requires the bettor to guess which of three small cups (or shells) a pea-sized object is concealed under, after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery.

тука има тука няма

game which requires the bettor to guess under which of three small cups a pea-sized object has been placed

Any confidence scheme, especially one involving the rapid movement of investment funds to a location beyond recovery.


DCS

It is being led by DCS Jim Taylor, who is the head of Opal, the national intelligence unit for organised acquisitive crime.

2023 December 22, Robyn Vinter, “Britons increasingly turning to food black market, experts say”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

detective chief superintendent
detective chief superintendent#English

(law enforcement, Commonwealth) Initialism of detective chief superintendent, a police rank.


body snatcher

From body + snatcher. Later use highly influenced by the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers and its repeated adaptation into film, wherein aliens begin replacing humans with pod people.

ligrøver

One who secretly removes without right or authority a dead body from a grave

They proved to be two of those Body-Snatchers, called hired Constables, who were patrolling the Fields.

Look here, my body-snatchers, you have unlawfully abridged the liberty of one of the sons of the sovereign State of New York!

(slang, humorous, derogatory, obsolete) One who makes arrests, such as a bailiff or policeman.

A black woman told Carrie not to say master and missis, because you were body-snatchers and slave-drivers.

1852, B.R. Hall, Frank Freeman's Barber Shop, xiv. 252:

Girls who can't let a man go by without reaching out for him. That's what I call them—body snatchers.

1894 September, Harper's Magazine, 581/2:

McCulloch had no compunction about using these executive recruiting firms. They were, he knew, often derisively called ‘body snatchers’, ‘head hunters’, ‘flesh peddlers’, and ‘pirates’.

South claims hundreds abducted by North Korea's ‘body snatchers’.

1994 August 9, “Newswire”, in Associated Press:

‘What are you looking at?’
‘An alien body snatcher who stole my partner and took her place.’

2000, C. Golden, Head Games, section 166:

One who abducts or controls another's body, such as a slaver, psychic, or human resources agent.

Body-snatcher, a stealer of dead bodies from churchyards; which are sold to the surgeons and students in anatomy.

1819, J. H. Vaux, “New Vocab. Flash Lang.”, in Memoirs:

So emboldened and careless did these body-snatchers become... that they no longer confined themselves to pauper graves.

1910, Encyclopædia Britannica, I. 937/2:

(historical) One who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves, a resurrection man.

The head of a ring of bodysnatchers who stole the bones of broadcaster Alistair Cooke pleaded guilty yesterday.

2008 March 19, Daily Record, Glasgow, section 9:

(in particular) A graverobber who steals bodies or body parts.

No men could have behaved more admirably than my Imperial bearer companies, or 'body snatchers,' as the men used to call them.

1917, General Buller, quotee, Military Medicine, volume 40, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 341:

Freezing conditions in the hills make essential the quick evacuation of wounded, and their regimental mates are full of praise for the sterling job done by the cheerful, tireless “body-snatchers” of the Battalion.

1951, Great Britain. Army. Royal Army Medical Corps, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, volumes 96-97, J. Bale, Sons & Danielson, Limited, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 410:

Tom dismounted and led Toby toward a group of men standing by a stack of stretchers. “Hey, you body snatchers,” he called out. “I have a wound that needs dressing.” He tied Toby to a stretcher.

2011, Robert W. Mackay, Soldier of the Horse, TouchWood Editions, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 185:

(British, military, slang) A stretcher-bearer.


police line

A line of police officers standing guard.


ghost car

The committee is asking Metro Council to tack new restrictions onto Metro licences, including . . . an expanded ghost car program.

1984 October 10, “Curbing Metro's auto ripoffs”, in Toronto Star, page A18:

Officers in a ghost car were doing speed enforcement near 82 Street and 132 Avenue when a white 1995 Ford Contour sped by.

2007 July 13, Eliza Barlow, “Police pursuit called off”, in Edmonton Sun, Alberta, retrieved 2008-02-28:

(Canada) An unmarked police car or an unmarked vehicle used as a decoy by police.


ODC

(Ireland, law enforcement, informal) Initialism of ordinary decent criminal. (a prisoner not associated with terrorism)


grand theft auto

From grand theft (“aggravated theft”) + auto (“automobile”), apparently at first in law-enforcement lists.

(US) The criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle.

盜竊汽車 /盗窃汽车

criminal act of stealing a motor vehicle


bait car

2008, "Be careful what you steal," The Norman Transcript (Oklahoma), 7 Feb. (retrieved 29 Feb. 2008),
The whole premise behind the police department's "bait car" program is to entice an auto thief to take the rigged automobile and get caught.

A vehicle used as a decoy by police to help apprehend car thieves, often equipped to be tracked by GPS and to be disabled remotely.


road agent

The highway robber—road-agent, he is quaintly called—is still busy in these parts.

1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 1, in The Silverado Squatters:

(chiefly US, archaic) A criminal who accosts travelers and robs them.


shadow government

shadow government (plural shadow governments)

The origin of such terms (e.g., shadow government, shadow cabinet, shadow minister, shadow portfolio) lies in the figurative metaphor of a shadow (shade) following its source object closely and in well-defined parallel. But conspiracy theorists have longed seized upon the way it sounds nefarious, as if it were meant to connote dark and sinister forces. This interpretation is also encouraged by disinformation purveyors seeking to sow societal disruption.

conspiracy theorized
conspiracy theorized

(political science) A (real or conspiracy theorized) body of private individuals who exercise actual power behind the scenes instead of a country's or organization's public figures.


have up

en-verb

have up (third-person singular simple present has up, present participle having up, simple past and past participle had up)

has up (present singular third-person)
having up (participle present)
had up (participle past)
had up (past)

In the police courts it is not uncommon to hear that such and such low persons have been "had up" for "cat and kitten sneaking," i.e., stealing quart and pint pots.

1867, Jacob Larwood, John Camden Hotten, The History of Signboards, page 177:

"He broke a dog's leg with a stone, and there was some talk of having him up for it, but the people were afraid of him, and no one would prosecute."

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

2007, Saturday October 27, Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family, by Anne Karpf in The Guardian
If Richard Dawkins had his way, a fair number of you and, as it happens, me, would be had up for child abuse. According to him, that's what religious indoctrination of children by their parents is.

(transitive, idiomatic, UK) To accuse, arrest, try for a criminal act.


Above him, on the wall of the cybercafe, is a large yellow sign with black block letters that warns: “TO OUR CUSTOMERS – Tomsed Cyber Cafe now has an activity monitor software that monitors all activities of 419s including their mails in all our workstations. Therefore any customer caught with 419 job will be handed over to the police. BE WARNED!”

2007, Teju Cole, Every Day is for the Thief, Faber & Faber (2015), page 26:

A 419 fraud; any of the various advance fee scams in which the scammer solicits up front payments promising large sums of money.


419 fraud

The number 419 refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud.

A scam in which the solicitor offers large sums of money in return for a smaller up front investment.


gun down

gun down (third-person singular simple present guns down, present participle gunning down, simple past and past participle gunned down)

guns down (present singular third-person)
gunning down (participle present)
gunned down (participle past)
gunned down (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-gun down.wav

In the cell diagonally across from mine, a prisoner regularly “gunned down” the nurse on her morning rounds. He deliberately masturbated so that she'd see him through the cell door window as he ejaculated.

(transitive, US, prison slang, of a male prisoner) To masturbate while making sustained eye contact with someone — typically a female prison officer — as a form of intimidation.


shoofly

A child's rocker having a seat supported between two boards cut and painted to resemble animals.


duppy

duppy (third-person singular simple present duppies, present participle duppying, simple past and past participle duppied)

duppies (present singular third-person)
duppying (participle present)
duppied (participle past)
duppied (past)

Jamaica, circa 18th century. From Bube dupe (“ghost”) (compare Akan adɔpe).

2008, Kingsley Ogundele, online message quoted in 2010 January 27, Rob Sharp, "CSI: Chatroom", The Independent
He refers to his intention to kill a schoolgirl pregnant with Jolie's unborn baby – who the pair believe is giving Jolie undue hassle. "I'll get da fiend to duppy her den," he writes.

He duppied my bredren and as long as I could remember Paps was telling me not to trust the Feds.

2011, Alex Wheatle, The Dirty South, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 176:

(MLE, MTE, transitive) To kill; to murder.


bloodshedder

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bloodshedder.wav


blood diamond

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-blood diamond.wav

Several certification systems already exist throughout the world. The Kimberly Process certifies the origin of rough diamonds from areas that have conflict-free diamond production. The process aims to prevent “blood diamonds.”

2011 July 11, Erin Banco, “Is Your Cell Phone Fueling Civil War in Congo?”, in The Atlantic:

A diamond that has been mined in a war zone and sold in order to finance the conflict.

bloeddiamant

1. a diamond that has been mined in a war zone and sold in order to finance the conflict


wet work

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-wet work.wav

Calque of Russian мо́крое де́ло (mókroje délo).

clq

мо́крое де́ло

2010, RED
Joe: Victoria was the best wet work operator the Agency ever had.
Woman 1: What does that mean?
Victoria: I killed people, dearie.

(euphemistic) Covert assassination performed by government operatives.

He had also done a lot of Louis Deems' wet work, especially when it came to intimidating juries.

2009, Dana Stabenow, Whisper to the Blood, →ISBN, page 132:

(by extension) Work within a gang or organization that involves killing or attacking people, for assassination or intimidation.

Most of the time I clean with A.J. or another coworker, who vacuums while I do the wet work—bathrooms and kitchens.

2011, Autumn Stephens, Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick, →ISBN:

Cleaning tasks that involve scrubbing with cleansers.


celly

So tragic, need a hot meal in my baby’s belly / Reminisce no hard times in my pen, in my celly, / I ain’t tryna go back, cause backwards ain’t part of my PJ

2000, “Win Or Lose”, in Baller Blockin, performed by Rappin’ 4-Tay, from 2:43:

I was locked up in my celly / Murder for hire, no snitchin or tellin / I got no calls or no type of mailin

2017 October 7, “No questions”, in Who Am I 3, performed by BlocBoy JB:


unsub

Further analysis may identify that the unsub has no specific schedule and has been escalating in the type of fire activity he or she is involved in.

2002, Brett Martinez, Multiple Fire Setters: The Process of Tracking and Identification, page 110:

In short, UNSUB profiling is premised on two fundamental assumptions: (1) behavioral uniformity across offenses and (2) steady associations between configurations of offense behaviors and background characteristics.

2011, Brent E. Turvey, Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis, page 639:

(law enforcement) Abbreviation of unknown subject. of an investigation.


child pornography

Pornographic material depicting minors; sexually explicit (or suggestive) images of children.


murder will out

The phrase murder will out, literally "murder will become public", appears as far back as Geoffrey Chaucer's works. The phrase is often linked to the superstition that a murderer's presence near the corpse will be indicated by fresh bleeding.

紙包不住火 /纸包不住火 (zhǐ bāo bùzhù huǒ, literally “fire cannot be wrapped up in paper”)

ши́ла в мешке́ не утаи́шь (šíla v mešké ne utaíšʹ, literally “you can't hide an awl in a sack”)

(idiomatic) Secrets or hidden crimes will eventually be exposed or discovered; nothing that is secret can remain a secret forever.


rob blind

en-verb

rob blind (third-person singular simple present robs blind, present participle robbing blind, simple past and past participle robbed blind)

robs blind (present singular third-person)
robbing blind (participle present)
robbed blind (participle past)
robbed blind (past)


malky

malky (third-person singular simple present malkies, present participle malkying, simple past and past participle malkied)

malkies (present singular third-person)
malkying (participle present)
malkied (participle past)
malkied (past)


malky

Oota ma coupon afore ah gies y' the malky, ya bam.


DCI

detective chief inspector
detective chief inspector#English

(law enforcement) Initialism of detective chief inspector, a police rank used in Commonwealth countries.


armoured car

(law enforcement) An armoured vehicle resistant to small arms fire.

警用裝甲車 /警用装甲车

(law enforcement) armoured vehicle resistant to small arms fire


usual suspects

The phrase was commonly used in New York in the 1930s, by both criminals and law enforcement, often with regard to baseless arrests. The phrase was popularized more broadly by its appearance in the 1942 film Casablanca, especially since the 1990s.

Major Strasser has been shot... round up the usual suspects.

1942, Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch, Casablanca, spoken by Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains):

(law, crime, criminology, often ironic) The people, often scapegoats, routinely arrested in response to a crime.


carceral

From Late Latin carcerālis (“carceral”), from Latin carcer (“jail, prison”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to bend, turn, in the sense of an enclosure”)) + -ālis (suffix forming relational adjectives).

der

[O]n his showing signs of penitence, through favour they were contented that he should be released from his carceral endurance, in case he would put in sufficient surety in the king's chancery, and swear that he would never hold or favour any such opinions hereafter. And so, taking an oath of him, the archbishop committed him to the custody of the bishop of Worcester, to whom power and authority were permitted to release him, upon the conditions aforesaid.

1855, John Foxe, “Book VI. Pertaining to the Last Three Hundred Years from the Loosing Out of Satan.”, in The Church Historians of England. Reformation Period. The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe. […], volume III, part II, [London]: Seeleys, […], →OCLC, page 582:

This moon-calf of the imagination binds your reason, sir, in carceral chains.

[1861?], Bracebridge Hemyng, “Coaches, Whales, and Wings”, in The Dark Cloud with the Silver Lining, London: James Blackwood, […], →OCLC, page 32:

For [Michel] Foucault makes no bones about it: we live – as direct heirs to the impulses and institutions first manifested in the high tide of rising of bourgeois society – under a ‘universal reign of the normative’ dominated by agents of normalcy and surveillance: the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social-worker-judge. And such a social world is plainly ‘a carceral network’ in ‘compact or disseminated forms’. […] The ‘carceral system’, therefore, extends ‘well beyond legal imprisonment’; prison is at bottom just its ‘pure form’ within a continuum of disciplinary apparatuses and ‘regional’ institutions.

1987, J[osé] G[uilherme] Merquior, “Charting Carceral Society”, in Foucault, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, pages 95–96:

Instead, this article seeks to demonstrate the extent to which evangelical and feminist antitrafficking activism has been fueled by a shared commitment to carceral paradigms of social, and in particular gender, justice (what I here develop as “carceral feminism”) and to militarized humanitarianism as the preeminent mode of engagement by the state.

2010 autumn, Elizabeth Bernstein, “Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking Campaigns”, in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, volume 36, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 45–71:

Neoliberal penality and its earlier iterations have fertilized the carceral sphere. They have made possible, by resolving any possible cognitive dissonance, a world in which 71 percent of American respondents could favor the free-market economy as the very best system on which to base the future of the world and, at the very same time, live in a place that operates the world's biggest, most expensive, government-run, interventionist, prison system that incarcerates more than one out of every hundred adults in the country.

2011, Bernard E. Harcourt, “The Paris Marais and the Chicago Board of Trade”, in The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order, Cambridge, Mass., London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, pages 42–43:

By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.

2016, Sonia Sotomayor, “Utah v. Strieff”, in U.S. Reports, volume 579, Washington, D.C.:

Whereas rates of COVID-19 vary nationwide, our results add to a growing body of literature epmhasizing high COVID-19 rates in carceral settings and the importance of testing and decarceration.

2020 August 21, Jiménez, M. C. et al., “Epidemiology of COVID-19 among incarcerated individuals and staff in Massachusetts jails and prisons”, in JAMA, →DOI:

(formal or literary) Of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison.

سِجْنِيّ

of or pertaining to imprisonment or a prison

penitentiary

of or relating to the punishment of criminals


crowbar hotel

Many unfortunate suckers, finding themselves losers, even in an honest game, became obstreperous, and the services of the bouncer, or even of a resident gunhand, might be required to pacify them, after which the complainant would be hauled to the crowbar hotel to recover enough of his equanimity to appear peacefully before a justice of the peace.

1981, Watson Parker, Deadwood: The Golden Years, University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 190:

Correctional Services Minister Nick Leluk often refers to his "guests" in his chain of "hotels". What do these guests have to do to earn their keep in Ontario's crowbar hotels?

1983 October 21, Orland French, “Gnomes grind out the gems”, in The Globe and Mail, Canada:

If Vick gets 18 months in the crowbar hotel, as speculated, that essentially means two seasons away from the NFL.

2007 August 22, Dave Perkins, “NFL will paper over Vick scandal”, in Toronto Star, Canada:


rap sheet

From RAP (“record of arrest and prosecution”) + sheet.

af

Three counts of breaking and entering, four counts of assault, seven misdemeanors for carrying illegal substances, and a partridge in a pear tree,” Paul finished with a smirk, handing the rap sheet to Mason.

Seeking a new approach, he applied for an editor position at the Earth First! Journal, an environmental newsletter in Eugene, Ore. His application included a copy of his rap sheet; he was hired immediately.

2022 May 26, Matthew Wolfe, “The Rise and Fall of America’s Environmentalist Underground”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(US, law, criminology) A printed police record of an individual's citations, arrests, convictions, and incarcerations, usually in a single jurisdiction.


shimming

(crime) The act of fraudulently copying a chip from a chip-and-pin card, such as found on credit cards and bank cards, through the use of a shimmer


hymenorrhaphy

(medicine) Reconstructive surgery in which a woman's hymen is restored to the unbroken condition ordinarily characteristic of virginity.


cybercrime

en-noun

cybercrime (countable and uncountable, plural cybercrimes)

(uncountable) Crime committed using computer networks.


gallows bird

From gallows + bird. Compare German construction Galgenvogel (literally “gallows-fowl" or "gallows-bird”), and French gibier de potence, as well as similar English jailbird.

Everybody along Long Wharf knows you called him a gallows bird. He's not used to it.

1943, Esther Hoskins Forbes, Johnny Tremain:

The story of the man who bit off his father's nose for rearing him as a gallows bird is as old as Aesop, but no known source before Brant mentions the son's name.

2012, Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools:

Before me stood not Philippe but a gallows bird no respectable citizen would want to meet up with on a lonely road.

2015, Paul Steinberg, Speak You Also: A Holocaust Memoir:

(archaic) A person who deserves, or is likely, to be hanged.


officer-involved shooting

officer-involved shooting (plural officer-involved shootings)

(US, euphemistic) An incident in which a police officer shoots at another person.


aggravated assault

aggravated assault (countable and uncountable, plural aggravated assaults)

(US criminal law) Assault with disregard for the value of life, or with a deadly weapon.


OIC

(law enforcement) Initialism of officer in the case.


fly-by-night

Do not give your credit card number to that fly-by-night operation.

(often attributive) One who departs or flees at night in order to avoid creditors, law enforcement etc.


pay-to-play

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Davis's pay-to-play reputation, demanding donations before he would consider policies or appointments favorable to the potential donors, was used against him.

2004, Larry N. Gerston, Terry Christensen, Recall!: California's Political Earthquake:

(by extension, politics, of a politician or a party) Accepting donations in exchange for favors; corrupt.


power behind the throne

power behind the throne (plural powers behind the throne or powers behind thrones)

powers behind the throne (plural)
powers behind thrones (plural)

(idiomatic) Someone who appears to be without special status, but who has great covert influence on a person in authority.


riot gear

All the protective clothing, shields and weaponry worn or carried by a force attempting to control a riot.

tenuta antisommossa

protective clothing worn by a force controlling a riot


partner in crime

partner in crime (plural partners in crime)

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archmurderer

(rare) One who kills many people; a murderer who surpasses the profile of a normal serial killer.


insider trading

Wall Street wants repeal of the provisions for penalizing executives (and large stockholders) who trade in their company's securities. It claims that publicity on such "insider" trading is enough.

1942 February 9, “Back to Philadelphia”, in Time:

The aim of insider trading law is simple: prohibit people from profiting from advance knowledge of a stock-moving event—be it a merger, an earnings warning or a soon-to-be-published news story.

2003 June 5, Jake Ulick, “Insider trading: A primer”, in CNNMoney.com, retrieved 2008-10-25:

(business, finance, law) The illegal trading of a public company's stock or other securities based on material, nonpublic information about the company.

內線交易 /内线交易

trading of securities by a person who has privileged access to information

insájdɛrskije torgóvyje operácii s cénnymi bumágami

инса́йдерские торго́вые опера́ции с це́нными бума́гами


honour killing

The prevailing patriarchal and misogynist practices prevailing in Muslim countries have created an association between Muslim countries and honour killing in the public mind. However, according to UNICEF, the practice of honour killing is an ancient one and involves men killing female relatives in the name of family honour for forced or suspected sexual activity outside marriage, even when the women have been victims of rape.

2008, Riaz Hassan, Inside Muslim Minds, Melbourne University Press, page 200:

Such honour killings are justified by quoting Sura 4:15. A man who kills his wife, mother, daughter or sister for sexual indiscretion or for eloping (both acts that are regarded as bringing dishonour to the family) is either lightly fined or immune from prosecution.

2009, John Azumah, My Neighbour's Faith: Islam Explained for African Christians, WordAlive Publishers, unnumbered page:

What is true of forced marriages is also true of the horrific practice of ‘honour’ killings, a term that acts as a fig leaf for the (often premeditated) murder of young women who have supposedly brought ‘shame’ to the honour of families.

2011, Ali Rattansi, Multiculturalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, page 55:

(euphemistic) A typically Middle Eastern and South Asian cultural practice whereby a family member, usually female, is murdered by other family members, the act being justified as retribution for a (usually sexual) slight upon the family's honour.

רֶצַח עַל חִלּוּל כָּבוֹד הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה


buy off

en-verb

buy off (third-person singular simple present buys off, present participle buying off, simple past and past participle bought off)

buys off (present singular third-person)
buying off (participle present)
bought off (participle past)
bought off (past)

Then, Sir, as to Bribery and Corruption at Elections ... every Elector has a natural Byass to vote for one Man rather than another, and every Elector will vote according to his natural Byass, if he is not bought off: whoever endeavours to buy him off, must certainly come up to his Price, and this Price will be higher or lower, according to the Elector's Honour and Circumstances, and the natural Byass he has for the other Candidate. A great many Men may be perhaps bought off with 100 or 1000 Guineas, who, if half that sum were offered, would spurn it away with an honest Disdain.

1742, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, The history and proceedings of the House of Commons from the Restoration to the present time, Volume 8, page 166:

You like to hear about gold.
A king filled his prison room
As full as the room could hold
To the top of his reach on the wall
With every known shape of the stuff.
’Twas to buy himself off his doom.

1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:

(transitive) To pay off, convince to refrain etc. by corrupt payment or other service.


psyops

en-noun

psyops pl (normally plural, singular psyop)

‘Russia Today’, he said, his finger marking each syllable with a thud on the table in front of us, ‘is psy-ops’—short for psychological operations. […] ‘It is run directly from the Kremlin. It's following Kremlin's narratives. It's a psy-ops operation. And it's black psy-ops.’

2018, Carl Miller, quoting Mark Laity, chapter 6, in The Death of the Gods […] , William Heinemann, →ISBN:

Techniques used by military and police forces to influence the beliefs, emotions and behaviour of citizens.


antiterrorism

Antiterrorism funding was increased after 2001.

(law enforcement, military, often attributive) Activity aiming at opposing or preventing terrorism.


PCC

police clearance certificate
w:police clearance certificate

(law enforcement) Initialism of police clearance certificate.


bribable

en-adj

bribable (comparative more bribable, superlative most bribable)

more bribable (comparative)
most bribable (superlative)

He liked always, where Lambert Strether was concerned, to know the worst, and what he now seemed to know was not only that he was bribable, but that he had been effectually bribed. The only difficulty was that he couldn't quite have said with what. It was as if he had sold himself, but hadn't somehow got the cash.


police state

Likely a calque of German Polizeistaat adopted following the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 and the ensuing Demagogenverfolgungen, culminating in the crackdown of liberal and anarchical movements popular in the 1840s during the German revolutions of 1848–1849. Equivalent to police + state.

You didn't know there is […] an active campaign, propaganda and otherwise, […] against all kinds of security procedures on the ground that they are all police state methods and all interfere with individual rights?

1964 September 16, J. G. Sourwine, “Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigatee the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate Eighty-Ninth Congress First Session”, in hearing (US Senate), volume 10, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, page 674:

[Mo:] But out there in the real world they're bombing abortion clinics... holding Nazi and KKK rallies... trying to quarantine people who might have AIDS. They're making secret weapons deals to illegally fund so-called "freedom fighters" and calling it "the Lord's work"!! We're living in a Protestant police state […]

1987, Alison Bechdel, “High Anxiety”, in Dykes to Watch Out For:

A gun up in our faces and they never gave a reason / The writing's on the wall, the politics are fake / Its clear to me we're livin' in a police state […] The prisons are for profit, its society's mistake / How macabre, we been living in a police state

2015, “Police State”, in Police State, performed by Tropidelic:

(usually derogatory) A polity whose government exercises strict and repressive control of the people.

Carlsbad Decrees
German revolutions of 1848–1849
de:Demagogenverfolgung
police state

polisiestaat

nation whose government controls people by police


druglord

A person who controls a large network of people involved in the illegal drug trade.

наркобаро́н

person who controls a network of persons involved in the illegal drug trade


hostage negotiator

en-noun

hostage negotiator (plural hostage negotiators)

Modern hostage negotiation principles began in 1972 when, then New York Police Detective Harvey Schlossberg, a police officer with a PHD in psychology, recognized the need for trained personnel in the intervention of hostage situations.

(politics, law) A person who negotiates with a person, or groups of persons, for the release of a person, or groups of persons.

túsztárgyaló

a person who negotiates with a person, or groups of persons, for the release of a person, or groups of persons


long arm of the law

It is my belief that I could have felt no greater dismay, if the long arm of the Law had laid its hold on me while he was speaking.

1889, Wilkie Collins, chapter 60, in The Legacy of Cain:

The long arm of the law does not protect banks the way it used to.

1979 September 3, “Pass the Buck”, in Time, archived from the original on 2010-09-01:

"Repeat violent offenders will hopscotch over state lines to avoid the long arm of the law," said Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

2008 September 12, Lisa Rein, “Jurisdictions Share Data on Ex-Offenders”, in Washington Post:

(idiomatic, almost always preceded by the) The influence or effectiveness of law enforcement institutions; law enforcement officers collectively.


repeat offender

repeat offender (plural repeat offenders)

A person who has previously offended against the law, often someone who may be deemed incorrigible.


antibribery

The antibribery laws in this country are very strict.

(law) Opposing or prohibiting bribery, especially of public officials


antiterror

(law enforcement, military) Opposing or preventing terrorism.


electoral fraud

The taking such measures, in order to secure their fair right of voting to the electors in a particular interest, must be considered rather as an act of official favouritism, than as an electoral fraud.

1839, Charles Buller, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham:

He has saddled the finances of the Principality with the costs of a huge electoral fraud.

1882, M. Valentine Chirol, “Bulgaria”, in The Fortnightly Review, volume 36, page 293:

In addition to the strength of the Social Democratic candidates, I also examined the relationship between other political factors and the incidence of electoral fraud.

2015, Isabela Mares, From Open Secrets to Secret Voting:

(politics) Illegal interference with the process of an election, especially with the intent to stage a desired election outcome.


assaultive

This man is not only very very sick, but I believe he is definitely a Potential Assaultive.

1962, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, New York: Signet, page 134:

Extreme assaultives were operationally defined as those who were convicted of murder, manslaughter, or attempted murder. Moderate assaultives included persons convicted of wounding with intent to cause serious bodily harm, malicious or unlawful wounding, and assault.

1980, Curt R. Bartol, chapter 8, in Criminal Behavior: A Psychosocial Approach,, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, page 223:

(psychiatry, criminology) A person who assaults others.


antigraft

Gabon charged five journalists and antigraft campaigners on Friday with trying to incite rebellion […].

2009 January 10, “Gabon: President’s Critics Charged”, in New York Times, sourced from Reuters:

(politics) Opposed to or working against graft


anticorruption

en-adj

anticorruption (comparative more anticorruption, superlative most anticorruption)

more anticorruption (comparative)
most anticorruption (superlative)

/ˌæntiːkəˈɹʌpʃən/

The government recently started an anticorruption campaign.

In the fight against corruption, ADB staff members are supported by an elaborate anticorruption framework, consisting of policy, operational, and administrative provisions, which may sometimes be daunting to navigate. Inquiries to ADB's Office ...

2011, Asian Development Bank, Frequently Asked Questions on Anticorruption and Integrity, Asian Development Bank, →ISBN:


stickman

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In some cases, when the property is taken from the drunken man, one of the women on some pretext steps to the door and passes it to the “stickman” standing outside, who then makes off with it.

1861, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume IV (Those that Will Not Work), London: Griffin, Bohn, and Company, […], →OCLC, page 282:

It is doubtful if the Victorian Londoner needed any warning, for the artful mobsmen, toolers, whizzers and dippers, together with their stickman accomplices, were everywhere in the crowds, in the underground, on railway trains […]

1976, Michael Harrison, Beyond Baker Street: A Sherlockian Anthology, page 117:

(UK, slang, archaic) A pickpocket's accomplice who takes the stolen goods in case the pickpocket is searched.


psyop

A psychological operative; a person who participates in psychological operations.


bluecoat

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The shot wounded Thomas Lord, a 73-year-old former New York City police officer from Suffolk, Va., and a bluecoat with the Seventh New York Volunteer Cavalry.

2009 January 18, Ralph Blumenthal, “Re-enactor Is Indicted in Shooting of a Yankee”, in New York Times:

(US history) A soldier or officer in the Union army during the American Civil War


yeggman

1915, W. M. McCarty, practically every thug, yeggman and ex-convict in the land:

(cant, slang) A person who breaks open safes, a burglar; a yegg.


antismuggling

Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, was in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the antismuggling effort with European officials.

2009 January 23, Isabel Kershner, “Hamas to Start Paying Gaza Residents Compensation and Reconstruction Aid”, in New York Times:

(law enforcement) Acting to combat or prevent smuggling


supermax

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From super- + max (as in maximum security prison).

Kaczynski had been held in the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge.

2023 June 11, “‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski died by suicide in prison – report”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:


borstal training

The court could sentence them to 'Borstal training', which meant that they were detained in a Borstal institution for an indeterminate period of between six months and two years.

1989, Richard Meredith Jackson, J. R. Spencer, Jackson's Machinery of Justice, page 277:

(British, law, historical) The sentencing of young offenders to a special prison.


kleptarchy

First, there is this great outstanding fact: that from the day of our independence the soul of the American people has been growing more and more democratic, and where the spirit of democracy is, whatever the institutional maladjustment, even a kleptarchy cannot go far wrong.

1920, Frederick Albert Cleveland, Arthur Eugene Buck, The budget and responsible government: a description and interpretation of the struggle for responsible government in the United States, The Macmillan Company:

Kleptocracy; rule by one or more thieves.


antiviolence

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And one-quarter of teenagers in relationships say they have been called names or harassed by their partner through cellphones and text messages, according to a study commissioned by the clothing company Liz Claiborne, which sponsors antiviolence programs.

2009 January 27, Stephanie Clifford, “Teaching Teenagers About Harassment”, in New York Times:

(law enforcement, sociology) Acting against or opposing violence.


RD

en-noun

RD (countable and uncountable, plural RDs)

(US, law enforcement) Initialism of reporting district.


sweatbox

They shoved me in the back of a police van and started driving to the cop shop. I was sitting in the sweatbox, wondering how the Dibble had got onto me so quickly, when I heard a voice from another section of the van say, 'Are you P from Macclesfield?'

2013, Colin Blaney, Hotshot: The Story of a Little Red Devil:

[…] she was finally hustled into a sweatbox, as prisoners and prison staff called it, and was off to meet her new home for the foreseeable future.

(UK, slang) A compartment in a police van to hold a prisoner being transported.


jumpout

“Well, I figured if the jumpouts came they wouldn′t search her,” says Rosa Lee. “They′d search me but they wouldn′t find nothing.”

1997, Leon Dash, Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, page 33:

(US, slang) A plainclothes narcotics officer.


panda car

/ˌpændə ˈkɑː/

/ˌpændə ˈkɑɹ/

From the original black and white colouring of the automobiles, like that of a giant panda.

(UK, Ireland, law enforcement, informal) A police car; specifically (historical), one with a broad white stripe painted around its middle on a darker-coloured or, originally, black background.


prisonlike

en-adj

prisonlike (comparative more prisonlike, superlative most prisonlike)

more prisonlike (comparative)
most prisonlike (superlative)

“The prisonlike conditions, this form of detention, is not necessary,” said Michelle Brané, who heads the detention and asylum program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

2007 February 22, Rachel L. Swarns, “2 Groups Compare Immigrant Detention Centers to Prisons”, in New York Times:

Resembling or characteristic of a prison


antigang

These changes occurred independent of any antigang program (CIN is the first of its kind in Chicago) and bore no relation to the number of officers in the Chicago Police Department's Gang Crimes Unit.

1988 March 4, Dan Cohen, “Our Gang”, in Chicago Reader:

(law enforcement) Intended to combat or reduce the activity of criminal gangs

antigangue

intended to combat or reduce the activity of criminal gangs


antinarcotics

Since 1993, the United States has twice helped set up special antinarcotics forces here, only to watch their commanders become embroiled in the drug trade themselves.

2007 March 5, James C. Mckinley Jr., “In Guatemala, Officers’ Killings Echo Dirty War”, in New York Times:

(law enforcement) Intended to combat narcotics trade or production


flying squad

A rapid-response unit of a police force.


WDC

woman detective constable
woman detective constable#English

(UK, law enforcement, historical) Initialism of woman detective constable, a former police rank.


cybercrook

It is widely recognized that you are far more likely to be swindled by a waiter at a restaurant than an evil cybercrook.

2001, Duncan Grey, The Internet in School:

The cybercrook has realized that stealing the next version of the Coca-Cola recipe or Windows software is worth more than a $10 million heist.

2005, Hedieh Nasheri, Economic Espionage and Industrial Spying:


thoughtcrime

en-noun

thoughtcrime (countable and uncountable, plural thoughtcrimes)

/ˈθɔːtˌkɹaɪm/

From thought + crime, coined by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A crime committed by having unorthodox, unofficial, controversial or socially unacceptable thoughts.


boost

Unknown. The verb is first recorded 1815; the noun, 1825. Compare Scots boost (“to move; drive off; shoo away”), bost, boast (“to threaten; scold”), Middle English boosten, bosten (“to threaten”). Possible doublet of boast.

cog

A push from behind, as to one who is endeavoring to climb.

(physics) A coordinate transformation that changes velocity.

(automotive engineering) A positive intake manifold pressure in cars with turbochargers or superchargers.


boost

en-verb

boost (third-person singular simple present boosts, present participle boosting, simple past and past participle boosted)

boosts (present singular third-person)
boosting (participle present)
boosted (participle past)
boosted (past)

(transitive, medicine) To give a booster shot to.

(transitive, engineering) To amplify; to signal boost.


antivandalism

(law enforcement) Opposing or proscribing vandalism.


perp walk

From perp + walk. First use appears c. 1980. See cite below.

... as well-dressed masters of the universe did the ritualized perp walk with their expensive Armani suit jackets draped over their handcuffs.

1980, Paul Fussell, Abroad - British Literary Traveling Between the Wars, page 114:

FBI agents gave former WorldCom executives Scott Sullivan and David Myers the same star treatment, parading the handcuffed quarry in an early-morning perp walk and prompting Sullivan's lawyer to complain about “the unfair taint of the current political climate.”

2002 August 12, Daniel Eisenberg et al., “Jail To The Chiefs?”, in Time:

The copter’s arrival at the Wall Street heliport led to an extraordinary scene: [Luigi] Mangione, surrounded by a swarm of gun-toting NYPD officers, in a slow, lengthy “perp walk” from the helicopter into a black van, with cameras catching every step.

2024 December 19, Eric Levenson, Ray Sanchez, “A whirlwind day for Luigi Mangione ends with new charges, revelations from a notebook and transfer to a federal prison”, in CNN, archived from the original on 2024-12-20:

(chiefly US, idiomatic, law enforcement) The intentional public display before news cameras of a person in police custody, especially someone famous or notorious, for the purpose of satisfying public interest, demonstrating the effectiveness of the authorities, or shaming the person.


compositry

This article examines issues in composite drawing and examines different methods for conducting witness interviews necessary to compositry.

1988, F. J. Domingo, "Forensic Art: Concepts and Approaches in Composite Interviewing," Journal of Forensic Identification, vol. 38, no. 6, p. 259, annotation

In recent decades, other attempts have been made at three-dimensional compositry, most notably by Fernado Poncé of the Los Angeles Police Department.

2001, Karen T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 206:

The single most common proportional mistake in both compositry and fine art portraits is making the nose too long in relation to the face drawn.

2007, Lois Gibson, Forensic Art Essentials: A Manual for Law Enforcement Artists, →ISBN, page 41:

(illustration) The use, especially in law enforcement, of ready-made images of portions of an object to compose a picture of the entire object, such as the face of a person described by eyewitnesses.


beartrap

(law enforcement, automotive, traffic) A radar trap used by police to catch speeders.


cyberpolice

The cyberpolice on Prodigy had busted me. Evidently, you can call the authorities from a button on your computer and complain when profanity is being used.

The cyberpolice and their elite masters are living under the sign of virtual catastrophe (that is, anticipating the electronic disaster that could happen)...

2004, Malcolm Miles, Tim Hall, Iain Borden, The city cultures reader:

Syria is not the only Arab state with a hyperactive cyberpolice.

(Internet) A police force that patrols the Internet or cyberspace.


grease someone's palm

grease someone's palm (third-person singular simple present greases someone's palm, present participle greasing someone's palm, simple past and past participle greased someone's palm)

greases someone's palm (present singular third-person)
greasing someone's palm (participle present)
greased someone's palm (participle past)
greased someone's palm (past)

I was never guilty of disloyalty to King Lewis, but I killed my wife's mother, pardieu!—which the judge seemed to think almost as vile, till I sent a friend to grease his palm with the last sou of my patrimony.

1891, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 11, in The Blue Pavilions:

We arrived at Almaty Airport, and from the moment the customs officer made it obvious in his fractured English that our entrance would be made easier if we greased his palm, we realised that all our Anglo-Saxon assumptions about how societies are run were not very relevant here.

2008 August 9, Tim Reynolds, “Traveller's tale”, in Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, retrieved 2009-04-08:

चाय-पानी (cāy-pānī, literally “tea-water”)

да́ть на ла́пу (dátʹ na lápu, literally “give onto a pad”)

подма́зать (podmázatʹ, literally “to oil”)


grease payment

Critics say there is no distinction between extortion and bribery, and that the distinction between a payoff (illegal) and a "grease" payment made to speed along normal duties (legal under the act) is unclear.

1981 July 28, Peter Grier, “US curb on overseas bribes: too prim, or simply proper?”, in Christian Science Monitor, retrieved 2009-04-09:

An important legal distinction is the difference between bribery and “grease payments,” which are paid in these countries not to affect someone’s decision-making but to speed the process of dealing with government.

2007 October 30, Mike Rast, “Webinar Prepares Local Companies for Cultural Gaps with India, China”, in globalatlanta.com, retrieved 2009-04-09:

(chiefly US, idiomatic, business, law, ethics) A bribe or extorted money, usually relatively small in amount, provided to a low-level government official or business person, in order to expedite a business decision, shipment, or other transaction, especially in a country where such payments are not unusual.


lubrication payment

en-noun

lubrication payment (plural lubrication payments)

By a metaphor in which facilitating human socioeconomic interaction is portrayed as lubricating machinery (e.g., oiling the gears, greasing the wheels); in this regard, compare also social lubricant.

A lubrication payment is a small payment to low-level business people or government officials to "grease the wheels" of business.

1995, Mark E. Mendenhall et al., Global Management, →ISBN, page 145:

Lubrication payments are made with requests for a person to perform a task faster or more efficiently, whereas subornation is an act of asking officials to neglect their duties or do something illegal.

2001, Y. H. Wong, Thomas K. Leung, Guanxi: Relationship marketing in a Chinese context, →ISBN, page 105:

(idiomatic, business, ethics, euphemistic) A bribe or extorted money, usually relatively small in amount, provided to a low-level government official or business person, in order to expedite a business decision, shipment, or other transaction, especially in a country where such payments are not unusual.


hard time

hard time (countable and uncountable, plural hard times)

They had a hard time putting the self-assembly furniture together without a manual.

The day passed without further incident. As did the next. And then the next. Until, eventually, Agnes began to have a hard time believing that anything strange had ever happened at all.

(colloquial, countable) Difficulties; a difficult time; trouble.


advance fee scam

advance fee scam (plural advance fee scams)

(criminology) A consumer fraud that involves obtaining a relatively small amount of money from the victim in advance of some large deferred benefit, such as a job, a high rate of return, or a share of embezzled money.


gang-rape

en-verb

gang-rape (third-person singular simple present gang-rapes, present participle gang-raping, simple past and past participle gang-raped)

gang-rapes (present singular third-person)
gang-raping (participle present)
gang-raped (participle past)
gang-raped (past)

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(transitive, intransitive) To perpetrate a gang rape.


date-rape

date-rape (third-person singular simple present date-rapes, present participle date-raping, simple past and past participle date-raped)

date-rapes (present singular third-person)
date-raping (participle present)
date-raped (participle past)
date-raped (past)


smash and grab

en-noun

smash and grab (countable and uncountable, plural smash and grabs)

a smash and grab raid

(often attributively) A robbery where a window of a shop or other premises is smashed and items are grabbed as quickly as possible.


neonaticide

neonaticide (countable and uncountable, plural neonaticides)

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But critics of the law said mothers who immediately kill their babies after giving birth, a practice known as neonaticide, are usually in deep denial about their pregnancies.

2007 February 4, Cara Buckley, “Brooklyn Girl Threw Away Her Newborn Son, Police Say”, in New York Times:

The murder of a newborn within 24 hours of birth.


antitrafficking

(law enforcement) Serving to counter arms or drug trafficking.


pickpocketing

pickpocketing (countable and uncountable, plural pickpocketings)

Copperfield says he turned his pockets inside out to reveal nothing in them, even though he was carrying his passport, wallet and cellphone. "Call it reverse pickpocketing," Copperfield told The Palm Beach Post for Wednesday's editions.

2006 April 26, “David Copperfield tricks robbers”, in USA Today, sourced from Associated Press, archived from the original on 2010-04-30:

The act of stealing from the pocket of a passerby; the crime committed by a pickpocket.


Jack the Ripper

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September 1888, Jack + the + ripper, from the Dear Boss letter.

Keep this letter back till I
do a bit more work. then give
it out straight. My knife's so nice
and sharp I want to get to work
right away if I get a chance.
Good luck.
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
Dont mind me giving the trade name

1888 September 25, Jack the Ripper, Dear Boss Letter, London, page 2:

Two communications of an extraordinary nature, both signed "Jack the Ripper," have been received by the Central News Agency, the one on Thursday last and the other yesterday morning. The first - the original of which has been seen by Major Smith, the Assistant Commissioner of the City Police - was a letter, bearing the E.C. postmark, in which reference was made to the atrocious murders previously committed in the East-end, which the writer confessed, in a brutally jocular vein, to have committed; stating that in the "next job" he did he would "clip the lady's ears off" and send them to the police, and also asking that the letter might be kept back until he had done "a bit more work." The second communication was a postcard, and as above stated, it was received yesterday morning. It bore the date, "London, E., October 1," and was as follows: - "I was not codding, dear old Boss, when I gave you the tip. You'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work to-morrow. Double event this time. Number One squealed a bit; couldn't finish straight off. Had not time to get ears for police. Thanks for keeping the last letter back till I got to work again." The postcard was sent to Scotland Yard. No doubt is entertained that the writer of both communications, whoever he may be, is the same person.

1888 October 2, The Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2004-08-10:

Nothing whatever has been discovered during the week to throw light upon the Whitechapel murders. The police entertain the belief, as we gather from the remarks of Mr. Crawford, the City Coroner, who is inquiring into the murder in Mitre Square, that they possess a fairly accurate description of the person of the murderer. He has, however, for the present, disappeared into space, unless it is he who writes certain letters signed "Jack the Ripper." The police think this is the case, and if so, he is an educated or partly educated man, of extreme audacity, intoxicated with the evil pride of crime, and resolute to commit more murders.

1888 October 13, “NEWS OF THE WEEK.”, in The Spectator, number 3,146, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1379, column 1:

Many of the dead were never identified simply because whole families died together and there was no one left to say who they were. One woman, named Elizabeth Stride, claimed to have been one of the survivors of the sinking, although there was no proof of this. She would later go down in history as the third victim of Jack the Ripper.

2018 September 14, Derek Coleman, “Old superstition comes true with tragic consequences”, in AP News, archived from the original on 2023-12-03:

Six weeks after Maxwell reported the sewage seepage this summer, an MDC inmate charged with robbing a bank said the toilet in his cell had been broken for three days.
"I do not care if the defendant is Jack the Ripper, we treat people under our care with respect and decency," U.S. District Judge William Kuntz said in a July 27 hearing about the toilet, which a prosecutor said was fixed ahead of the hearing. "This is an ongoing disgrace."

2021 November 18, Luc Cohen, quoting William Kuntz, “Ghislaine Maxwell sex crimes trial highlights conditions at Brooklyn jail”, in Noeleen Walder, Aurora Ellis, editors, Reuters, archived from the original on 2021-11-18, United States:

A supposed individual who was an unidentified 19th century serial killer in England, who has become part of folklore.


urka

Russian у́рка (úrka, “professional criminal, career criminal, thug, thief”)

uder

He then proceeds to describe the daily calendar of violence at the camp: one urka sprinting flat-out after another urka “with a bloody mattock in his hand, a pig methodically clubbing a fascist to the ground, a workshy snake slicing off the remaining fingers of his left hand.”

2007 January 9, Michiko Kakutani, “Love, Bludgeoned and Bent by the Camps”, in New York Times:


luminol

en-verb

luminol (third-person singular simple present luminols, present participle luminoling, simple past and past participle luminoled)

luminols (present singular third-person)
luminoling (participle present)
luminoled (participle past)
luminoled (past)

First use appears in 1934 in a paper by E. Huntress, L. Stanley, and A. Parker. The verbal form first appears c. 1997, although the exact date of its first appearance is uncertain.

Luminoling of material can establish unequivocally that no blood is present.

1997, United States. Court of Military Appeals, West Publishing Company (contributors), West's Military Justice Reporter, volume 46, page 860:

For two nights Patterson, Frosch, and Nabors Luminoled the house, checking and re-checking the evidence they found.

1997, Patricia Springer, Flesh and Blood, page 105:

Perhaps the auto warrant had gone through and the vehicle was being raked and combed and vacuumed and luminoled in some forensic garage.

2000, Jonathan Kellerman, Dr. Death, An Alex Delaware Novel, page 314:

The crime scene unit was all over the apartment, photographing, luminoling, vacuuming, plucking with tweezers.

2004, John Lutz, Darker Than Night, page 13:

Lester brings the hard-shelled golf bag in and Grissom luminols the interior of the case. The whole case fluouresces briefly then immediately fades, indicating the insides were bleached.

2004, Mike Flaherty, Corinne Marrinan, Anthony E. Zuiker, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Companion, page 201:

"You may not find it," McClure said. He answered Walt's puzzled expression by explaining," We luminoled her." He picked up a tube light from a workstation. "Get the lights," he said.

2007, Ridley Pearson, Killer Weekend, page 201:

He sighs. "The cops luminoled everyone at the hospital right after they got there. They all came out clean as a whistle."

2021, Antoinette van Heugten, Saving Max:

The Dassey garage was never luminoled or checked for forensic evidence of any type; blood found between the Dassey garage and residence was never tested.

2023, John Ferak, Wrecking Crew: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery:

The State Police come in later and find this stuff, but you know where they don't find any blood is in Omar Evans's office. They luminoled that whole place, and nothing.

2024, Rebecca Makkai, I Have Some Questions for You, A Novel, page 183:

(transitive, criminology, law enforcement) To test or subject a sample or an individual to a luminol agent in order to locate traces of blood.

luminoli

chemical that exhibits blue chemiluminescence


holding cell

A cell in a police station or courthouse in which a prisoner is held temporarily, pending charge, trial or sentencing.


laojiao

From Chinese 勞教／劳教 (láojiào) (an abbreviation of 勞動教養／劳动教养 (láodòng jiàoyǎng)).

zh-l

勞教／劳教 (láojiào)

勞動教養／劳动教养 (láodòng jiàoyǎng)

People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

(historical) A system of administrative detentions in the People's Republic of China in which penal labour is done for a small salary, generally used to detain people who have committed minor crimes.


murder in the second degree

en-noun

murder in the second degree (countable and uncountable, plural murders in the second degree)

Second-degree murder
second-degree murder#English


OCB

(law enforcement) Initialism of organized crime bureau.


high crime

From high (“of great importance and consequence; grave”) + crime.

Lese majesty used to be a high crime, for which royal or imperial courts often put offenders to death.

Charles Stuart King of England. You have been accuſed on behalf of the People of England of high Treaſon and other high Crimes; the Court have determined that you ought to anſwer the ſame.

1649 February 2, C. W., A Perfect Narrative of the Whole Proceedings of the High Court of Iustice in the Tryal of the King in Westminster Hall, on Saturday the 20. and Monday the 22. of This Instant January. […], London: Printed for John Playford, […], published 23 January 1648–1649 (Julian calendar), →OCLC, page 14:

By way of Advice, I do acquaint you that there is no Judicature in England ſuperior to this, but the Parliament immediately. You are here impeached of a very high Crime, High Treaſon; it may be a Strain of Youth: the firſt Step to Mercy is Confeſſion.

1658 June 11, “The Tryal of John Mordant, Esq; on Tuesday the First of June, 1658. 10 Car. II.”, in [Thomas Salmon], editor, A Compleat Collection of State-Tryals, and Proceedings upon Impeachment for High Treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours; […] In Four Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for Timothy Goodwin, […]; John Walthoe […]; Benj[amin] Tooke […]; John Darby […]; Jacob Tonson […]; and John Walthoe Jun. […], published 1719, →OCLC, page 814, column 1:

For, my Lords, if I have committed any Faults or Errours in Expreſſion, yet as I inſiſt upon my Innocence with reſpect to all the High Crimes laid to my Charge, ſo I muſt ſtill inſiſt upon all the Doctrines which I have taught, as being agreeable to the Word of God, and to the Doctrine of our excellent and Apoſtolical Church, and which we of the Clergy are oblig'd both by Subſcription, and Oath to acknowledge, and defend.

1710 March 18, [Henry Sacheverell], “Tuesday, March 7 [Julian calendar]. The Eighth Day.”, in The Tryal of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, before the House of Peers, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors; […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 349:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

1787 September 17, “[Constitution of the United States]”, in The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, retrieved 2019-06-19, Article II, section 4:

Treason and bribery [in the United States Constitution, Article II, section 4] have their precise definitions; other high crimes and misdemeanors have their import, but have not been legally defined, so as to include all cases which may fall under their heads. [...] A high crime is always understood to be some great offence against the State or the public; a misdemeanor is some petty offence in office, consisting of any kind of misbehaviour, or ill behaviour.

1836 March 18, [Thomas Hart] Benton, “Expunging Resolution”, in Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the First Session of the Twenty-fourth Congress: […] (United States Senate), volume XII, Washington, D.C.: Printed and published by Gales and Seaton, →OCLC, column 899:

The South entered an equal Union, in which she was promised the control of one branch of Congress, for her safety, her freedom, and her protection therein; and it was her high crime, her unpardonable rebellion, that she refused to submit to an overwhelming majority in both branches thereof. [...] This, in the estimation of the North, was her high crime and misdemeanor. In the estimation of history, it will be her noble-doing and heroic virtue.

1868 January, “Art. I.—1. History of the American Civil War. By John William Draper, […]. 1867. 2. Thoughts on the Future Civil Policy of America. By John William Draper, […]. 1865.”, in [Albert Taylor Bledsoe and Sophia Bledsoe Herrick], editors, The Southern Review, volume III, number V, Baltimore, Md.: Bledsoe and Browne, →OCLC, pages 18–19:

Congress has repeatedly defined "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" to be serious violations of the public trust, not necessarily indictable offenses under criminal law [...]

1989 April 25, Impeachment of Walter L. Nixon, Jr., Report to Accompany H. Res. 87, 101st Congress, 1st Session [H. Rep. 101-36], Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 5; quoted in Elizabeth B. Bazan, Anna C. Henning, “Background”, in Impeachment: An Overview of Constitutional Provisions, Procedure, and Practice (CRS Report for Congress; 98-186), Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 8 April 2010, →OCLC, page 23:

I am not dwelling today on high crimes. High crimes are so mind-boggling that the ordinary citizen cannot deal with them. [...] On the other hand, the practice of cheap chicanery, of dirty little cons, swindles and petty thievery, is something that at one time or another touches every one of us and is well understood.

1993, Howard Fast, “Our Friends in Washington [Uncommon Thieves]”, in War and Peace: Observations on Our Times, Armonk, N.Y., London: M[yron] E. Sharpe, →ISBN, page 190:

(law) A major crime or wrongdoing, notably one subject to trial before the highest courts which may impose the gravest punishments.


assassinatrix

From Latin assassinatrix. By surface analysis, assassinate + -trix.

surf

The young Socialists had glorified Vera Sassoulitsch, the Russian would-be assassinatrix.

1881, Leonard A. Montefiore, Essays and Letters Contributed to Various Periodicals between September 1877 and August 1879, together with Some Unpublished Fragments, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page xlvi:

[T]he Bride tracks down [David] Carradine's Bill—leader, mentor and more to this unstoppable assassinatrix.

2004 April 14, Richard von Busack, “‘Bill’ Paying: When Everything is Cool, Nothing is Hip—Quentin Tarantino Kills Again [review of Kill Bill: Volume 2]”, in Metroactive, Metro Silicon Valley, archived from the original on 2015-09-21:

Having appeared with Jason [Statham] in Lock, Stock [and Two Smoking Barrels], Snatch and Mean Machine didn't necessarily qualify Jason Flemyng to play the hapless Russian villain Dimitri, while Kate Nauta's role as an evil assassinatrix dressed only in bra, pants, suspenders and high heels teetered from the initially sexy to the rudely ridiculous.

2011, Len Brown, Jason Statham: Taking Stock, London: Orion Publishing, →OCLC:

Charlotte Corday
French Revolution
Jean-Paul Marat
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes
Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry
Reign of Terror


lightbar

A bar mounted on the roof of a vehicle, such as a police car, with rotating beacons or other lights to provide a visual warning.


zaptieh

From French zaptieh, from Ottoman Turkish ضبطیه (zaptiye, “policeman”), from Arabic ضَبْطِيَّة (ḍabṭiyya, “policeman”).

uder

One of the most striking photographs of the deportations that have come out of Armenia. Here is shown a column of Christians on the path across the great plains of the Mamuret-ul-Aziz. The zaptieths are shown walking along at one side.

1918, Aurora Mardiganian, Ravished Armenia, page 10:


gendercide

en-noun

gendercide (usually uncountable, plural gendercides)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-gendercide.wav

From gender + -cide, by analogy with femicide, homicide, etc. Doublet of genocide.

The killing of people because of their gender.


petro-dictator

Probably back-formed from petro-dictatorship.

[…] ignore the warnings while America's career politicians coddled and sun-bathed with their corrupt corporate campaign donors and the petro-dictators and monarchs[…]

2005, Peter De Krassel, Custom Maid Spin for New World Disorder:

By any reasonable standard it is a far better deal to send money to America's farmers than to various petro-dictators.

2008, Gal Luft, Breaking Oil's Monopoly in the Transportation Sector:

The U.S., the U.K. and others could point usefully to their own sometimes ruinous experiences with various African petro-dictators and diamond despots, in that not-so-distant past before we discovered our new-found attention to African democracy.

2009, Ernest J. Wilson, China's Influence In Africa:

The dictator of a country whose economy is primarily dependent upon the export of petroleum.


petro-dictatorship

The development of energy resources in an otherwise underdeveloped economy […] is often accompanied by the rise of corrupt, authoritarian regimes (Witness the petro-dictatorships of Nigeria, Libya[…])

1997, Peter Rutland, Lost Opportunities: Energy and Politics in Russia:

Internationally, what is already the world's most indebted nation is overextended on the military front, highly dependent on OPEC oil and increasingly beholden to sovereign wealth funds run by petro-dictatorships or authoritarian regimes

2009, Thomas J. Courchene, The Obama Opportunity: Agent of Change in a Time of Crisis:

A dictatorship funded by petroleum exports.


BOLO

William Davis Jr. admitted he had been drinking and driving, but he said he shouldn’t have been caught. Even though police had issued a BOLO or “be on the lookout” for his car and an officer testified Davis made several traffic violations, he said there wasn’t enough probable cause for the initial traffic stop that turned into a DUI. […] Davis said he should not have been stopped because the BOLO for his car was not checked out before he was pulled over, but Justice Cornelia Clark pointed out that shouldn’t matter.

2015 September 10, “Knoxville attorney admits to DUI, argues he shouldn’t have been pulled over”, in WATE, archived from the original on 2016-08-20:

Police had issue[d] a BOLO alert for Brown and the children when he suddenly arrived in the emergency room of Central Florida Regional Hospital, looking for his wife.

2016 April 20, Mo Barnes, “Father kills estranged wife, shoots kids”, in RollingOut, retrieved 2017-06-16:

Freeman was able to locate the male and recognized him from a BOLO.

2017 June 13, Keith Lane, “Frederick Freeman named MPD Officer of the Month”, in Local 15, retrieved 2017-06-16:

(US law enforcement, acronym) A broadcast issued from a law enforcement agency to others, typically containing information about a wanted suspect, a person of interest, or a related vehicle.


spivvery

spivvery (countable and uncountable, plural spivveries)

The Government decided the issues in accordance with the best principles, he said: "The weak first; and the strong next." Mr. Churchill preferred a free-for-all, but what was Toryism except organised Spivvery?

1948 July 4, “Mr Bevan's bitter attack on Tories”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Rome is also a city of spivvery, a city which had a black market before black markets were invented.

1956, Kenneth Wolstenholme, Sports Special, page 39:

With fascism defeated and Great Britain back on form, it is an optimistic start, but in spite of Mr Attlee’s government promising all the best things for Britain, the country has descended into spivvery, which forces the good men of 1087 [a motor gun boat; see The Ship That Died of Shame] into trafficking drugs and becoming criminals.

2013, Edward Page, A 1950s Childhood, Amberley, →ISBN, page 70:

Slater Walker became synonymous, after the 1973 crash, with City spivvery and the kind of risk-taking excess from which the next generation failed to learn.

2015 November 28, Martin Vander Weyer, “Never too late to investigate HBOS”, in The Spectator, page 36:

This is spivvery for which you and I pay billions extra just to get minimal services—it can also lead to a financial fragility at the heart of the firms on which Britain now relies.

2018 April 23, Aditya Chakrabortty, “Some call it outsourcing. I call it spivvery”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Behaviour characteristic of a spiv; crookery, petty crime.


don't drop the soap

From the exposure of one's buttocks when bending over in a male group shower, in reference to prison rape.

(idiomatic) Used as a mockery to someone who is about to be or should be confined in prison.


three hots and a cot

Rhyming expression from the idea of three hot meals daily and a bed to sleep on.
* Room and full board, as in a total institution

“I've never been to jail before,” [Neal] said. “But there is a bright side: three hots and a cot at taxpayer expense.”

1996 January 29, Unknown, “JUST FOLKS
 Homeless man who went on-line jailed on charge of stealing batteries”, in Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

It is, said the Rev. Eugene Boutilier, emergency services issues manager for the United Way, an important part of the mix of services that better-endowed cities are trying to provide to street people. "We need more than just three hots and a cot," he said.

1987 February 28, Jay Mathews, “Homeless Shelter Officials Differ on Problem’s Scope, Nature”, in The Washington Post, archived from the original on 2023-02-22:

The voluntary prisoner in search of "three hots and a cot" is a persistent figure in American popular culture.

2009 May 10, David Streitfeld, “The Recession Made Them Do It”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-10-11:

Doe raises the necessary money for its residents' wages; the city provides the money for "three hots and a cot".

2015 September 25, Sam Thielman, “New York City owes homeless aid organization $2.5m in unpaid funds”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 2020-11-08:

I guess I don't have much self-esteem. I'm grateful for the three hots and a cot for four weeks.

2017, Nancy Price, Blonde Broads, College Station, T.X.: Virtualbookworm Publishing, →ISBN, page 174:


air pirate

A person involved in air piracy (aircraft hijacking).


tosher

From 19th-century British thieves' cant tosh (“copper; items made of copper”) + -er (“one who uses or acquires”).

The sewer-hunters were formerly, and indeed are still, called by the name of ‘Toshers’, the articles which they pick up in the course of their wanderings along shore being known among themselves by the general term ‘tosh’, a word more particularly applied by them to anything made of copper.

1851, H. Mayhew, London labour and the London poor, II. 150/2:

(chiefly historical) A scavenger of valuables lost in the sewers, particularly those of London during the Victorian Age.


career criminal

career criminal (plural career criminals)

A person who makes a living illegally by committing crimes.

ammattirikollinen

a person who makes a living illegally by committing crimes


vice squad

The film is about a big city police vice squad, and the action opens with Gould and Blake posing as "fairies" in order to raid and 'bustup' a gay bar.

1974 February 2, “Notices”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 6:

(law enforcement, criminology) A police section specialized in vice crimes.


make away

en-verb

make away (third-person singular simple present makes away, present participle making away, simple past and past participle made away)

makes away (present singular third-person)
making away (participle present)
made away (participle past)
made away (past)

(obsolete, intransitive) To depart, leave; to make off.


cui bono

From Cicero’s Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino, 84 & 86: Latin cui bonō fuisset (“to whom it would have benefited”), a so-called double dative construction.

bor

If the principle of cui bono is applied, it is evident that the gainers were the party of the triumvirs, whose popularity would be increased by a belief being created that their opponents the Optimates were prepared to adopt extreme measures to get rid of them.

1900, Evelyn Shuckburgh, Letters to Atticus, translation of original by Marcus Tullius Cicero:

The principle that the ultimate initiator of an action is likely the person who stands to gain from the action.


IAB

internal affairs
internal affairs#English

(law enforcement) Initialism of internal affairs bureau.


QPF

(law enforcement, Quebec) SQ — Quebec police force — Sûreté du Québec


SQ

(law enforcement) Sûreté du Québec - the Quebec provincial police force


Sûreté du Québec

(Quebec, law enforcement) the Quebec provincial police force


SPVM

From French SPVM. Initialism of Service de police de la ville de Montréal..

init of

(law enforcement) Montreal police service — the police for the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada


police department

en-noun

police department (plural police departments)

(law enforcement) Police force, especially a local or regional branch of a national police force.

poliisilaitos

police force, especially a local or regional branch of a national police force


Sûreté

(law enforcement) The Sûreté Nationale of France.

(law enforcement, Quebec) The Sûreté du Québec.


SPCUM

Montreal Urban Community
Montreal Urban Community

(law enforcement) the Montreal Urban Community police service (Service de police de la Communauté urbaine de Montréal, SPCUM) — replaced by the SPVM


down the banks

Unknown. Probably of Irish origin.
five conjectural etymologies
* Notes & Queries, 3rd series, volume 1 (8 March 1862), page 189 posits a connection with "down the khud", supposedly used of a person falling down a precipice in the Himalayas.
* Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (1998) suggests falling off the raised bank of a bog into muddy water.
* Bernard Share (Slanguage, 1997) suggests a link to "The Banks of my own Lovely Lee", a Cork anthem nicknamed "De Banks".
See also:
* Laurence Urdang, Walter W. Hunsinger, Nancy LaRoche, Picturesque expressions: a thematic dictionary (1985, →ISBN, page 571
* The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006, →ISBN, volume 1 A–I, page 646

Mr. Heberton Fitzjames was (and, if he has not gone 'down the banks,' is) a gentleman such as we frequently see at the watering-places; a leader of the select parties there congregated. […] I became acquainted with Fitzjames in my way of making new friends. I had professional engagements with him, and from the name of 'the plaintiff,' I concluded it grew out of a sporting debt. Ah, Heberton, in that you were nearly gone 'down the banks!'

1852 April, "Flavul", The Knickerbocker, volume 39, page 336, "Transcripts from the docket of a late Sheriff of New-York"

A independent woter ain't the cheese any longer. […] The Stars is out in all kinds o' weather, and if they shines on a feller when he's got half a dozen glasses on board, the Watch-us', Squire Cole, and ten days down the banks, is the word!

1855, Albany Register, "An Independent Voter" (reprinted in Supplement to the Connecticut Courant, volume 20, number 27, page 211)


blowoff

Then comes the blowoff, by which they get rid of him .

1956, Chic Conwell, Edwin Hardin Sutherland, The Professional Thief, page 65:

White grifters call it the blowoff.

1969, Iceberg Slim (,Robert Beck), Trick Baby, page 123:

At the last moment something goes wrong, the money is lost (taking off the touch), and a physical altercation or other looming drama hurries the sucker out the door – and preferably out of town (the blowoff).

2023, Alan Prendergast, Gangbuster, page 43:

(crime) The stage in a con game in which one gets rid of the mark after taking his or her money.


fighting words

fighting words pl (normally plural, singular fighting word)

(law, crime) Words or remarks that are often considered a form of mitigation for otherwise sanctionable behavior (such as fighting).


big pharma

"Biotech's only got about $1.5 billion in partnering funds today, but big pharma is spending $25 billion in R&D" each year with marginal results, notes Burrill.

1994 September 26, “Biotech”, in BusinessWeek, retrieved 2013-10-10:

Critics were indignant that a potentially dangerous drug was being used on a hunch, and suspected the influence of big pharma and its drive to expand its markets.

2006 June 19, Daniel Williams, “Drugs Before Diagnosis?”, in Time:

The driving force, and substantial beneficiary, of this mass medicalisation is of course the pharmaceutical industry, or Big Pharma as it has pejoratively become known.

2012, James Le Fanu, “Bitter Pills to Swallow”, in Literary Review, number 399:

(business, derogatory) Large, prosperous pharmaceutical firms collectively, understood as a business group having significant economic, political, or social influence.


RAS

(law enforcement) Initialism of reasonable articulable suspicion.


FIN

force identification number
w:force identification number

(law enforcement, UK) Initialism of force identification number.


policer

a traffic policer; a bandwidth policer

(computing) A software component that enforces a security policy.


juice up

en-verb

juice up (third-person singular simple present juices up, present participle juicing up, simple past and past participle juiced up)

juices up (present singular third-person)
juicing up (participle present)
juiced up (participle past)
juiced up (past)

Coordinate term: spill juice

Juice man up with this 15 inch
Like, now I got blood on my splasher

2020 August 13, Blacz (lyrics and music), “TwentyTwo”, 1:21–1:26:

(MLE, slang) To kill or seriously injure with a knife.


kidsman

(dated) An adult who recruits children to train them as criminals.


evil genius

en-noun

evil genius (plural evil geniuses or evil genii)

evil geniuses (plural)
evil genii (plural)

He could in nowise comprehend it; but, taking it with other previous circumstances, he could not get quit of a conviction that he was haunted by some evil genius in the shape of his brother […].

1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford, published 2010, page 37:

It was as if I unconsciously realized that in her I had met my evil genius.

The spirit each person is believed to have in attendance, according to certain religious or mythological traditions, which tries to negatively influence him, and is opposed by his good genius; loosely, someone who is a bad influence.

An intellectually brilliant person who excells at using his or her mental abilities for negative or harmful ends; especially a criminal mastermind .

ilkeä nero

intellectually brilliant person who excells at using their mental abilities for negative ends


fraudonomics

And it’s clear that a lot more people here are aware of how fundamentally rotten things are but they’re not willing to face the big fraudonomics bummer yet, preferring instead to stick with specific accusations.

2010, Mark Ames, Confessions of a Wall Street nihilist: forget about Goldman Sachs, our entire economy is built on fraud:

economic system as a whole based on fraud


laogai

From Mandarin 勞改／劳改 (láogǎi, literally “labour rehabilitation”).

zh-l

Ethan Gutmann (2010) Hacker Nation: China's Cyber Assault, archived from the original on 2010-05-16: “The 6-10 Office also created fake refugees—young, trained to mimic Falun Gong behavior, and holding paperwork confirming time spent in laogai, China’s penal system.”

The use of prison labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China.


deep state

A calque of Turkish derin devlet (“deep state”) (early uses were in relation to Turkey, especially the 1996 Susurluk scandal).

calque

The ‘deep state’ remains hidden from the public. It is staffed by the security personnel. Its activities and the driving principles behind those activities are not decided by the legislature, controlled by the judiciary, or challenged by the popular will […]

1997, Turkish Probe, Ankara, Turkey: Turkish Daily News, →OCLC, page 111:

The term "deep state" is used in two different senses in Turkey. The first is rooted in a type of secret organization affiliated with NATO, which, with time, degenerated into an organized crime group engaged in the pursuit of private gain. In the second sense, the "deep state" is a type of special organization entrenched within the state apparatus and strives to keep the state on a predetermined course.

2010, Atay Akdevelioğlu [et al.], translated by Mustafa Akşin, edited by Baskın Oran, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1919–2006: Facts and Analyses with Documents (Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies), Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, →ISBN, page 658:

Since 1989–90, Pakistan’s ‘deep state’ – the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – has been waging a war against India through asymmetric means. The deep state has been sponsoring radical extremist organisations […]

2017, Gurmeet Kanwal, “India: Reluctant Nuclear Power”, in Sharpening the Arsenal: India’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrence Policy, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India: HarperCollins Publishers India, →ISBN:

Deep states do not arise in economic and historic vacuums; rather, they reflect their societies' economies and histories. Most deep state analysis comes out of the United States and Turkey and concentrates on military and security interests joining with corporate, technological, and financial interests to form deep states.

2017, Kevin Taft, “Oil and the Deep State”, in Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming – in Alberta, and in Ottawa, Toronto, Ont.: James Lorimer & Company, →ISBN, part 2 (Capture), page 121:

The Storm boils down to the idea that the US president is working to wipe out the effects of globalisation, a concept much hated by his supporters. To achieve this, he will apparently dismantle the 'deep state'.

2018 January 15, Kashmira Gander, “What is The Storm? Conspiracy theory that mysterious White House official QAnon is leaking secrets”, in International Business Times:

But over the last three weeks, the deep state has emerged from the shadows in the form of real live government officials, past and present, who have defied a White House attempt to block cooperation with House impeachment investigators and provided evidence that largely backs up the still-anonymous whistle-blower.

2019 October 23, Peter Baker, Lara Jakes, Julian E. Barnes, Sharon LaFraniere, Edward Wong, “Trump’s War on the ‘Deep State’ Turns Against Him”, in The New York Times:

The group was convinced modern Germany was run by a “deep state” conspiracy that was about to be exposed by an alliance of German intelligence agencies and the militaries of foreign states including Russia and the US.

2022 December 7, Philip Oltermann, “German police raids target far-right extremists ‘seeking to overthrow state’”, in The Guardian:

(politics, conspiracy research) A large group of people, typically members of government agencies and the military, believed to have enduring political influence that is difficult for an administration that is voted into power to counter or dislodge.

دَوْلَة عَمِيقَة

large group of people believed to have long-lasting political influence


axe-murder

en-verb

axe-murder (third-person singular simple present axe-murders, present participle axe-murdering, simple past and past participle axe-murdered)

axe-murders (present singular third-person)
axe-murdering (participle present)
axe-murdered (participle past)
axe-murdered (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-axe-murder.wav

From axe + murder or Back-formation from axe-murderer.

So […] the macabre episode of the two Americans axe-murdered […] became another chapter in the bloody annals of the Korean conflict.

1976 September 20, NEA London Economist News Service, “Touchy Issue: How Should U.S. Define Its Allies”, in Gadsden Times:

As it turned out, Mrs. Talbot was a perfectly nice woman, and the students she axe-murdered for her unholy rituals weren't close acquaintances anyway.

2004, Jeff Strand, Out of Whack, page 21:


carousel fraud

en-noun

carousel fraud (countable and uncountable, plural carousel frauds)

(finance, taxation) The theft of value-added tax from a government by exploiting the way VAT is treated within multijurisdictional trading where the movement of goods between jurisdictions is VAT-free.


antivandal

(law enforcement) Opposing or proscribing vandalism.


crimewave

A large increased incidence of crimes within a relatively short period of time.


PCSO

Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office
w:Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office

(Philippines) Initialism of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.


plastic plod

(UK, slang, derogatory) A police community support officer, a PCSO.


superpredator

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-superpredator.wav

From super- + predator. Sociology sense coined by John DiIulio in 1995.

In 1996 [DiIulio] authored an incendiary warning of a "rising tide of juvenile superpredators" [and in the National Review] "[a]ll that's left of the black community in […] urban America is deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults[.]"

2001 February 9, Vincent Schiraldi, “DiIulio needs more scrutiny”, in Star News:

Superpredators theoretically arise from dysfunctional homes, inadequate schools, and morally bankrupt communities.

2005, Gus Martin, Juvenile justice: process and systems:

(sociology) A youth who repeatedly commits violent crimes, said to be a result of being raised without morals.


kotwal

Borrowed from Hindi कोतवाल (kotvāl); see there for more.

Why do people pay taxes, offer their wrists for manacling when the kotwal or even an ordinary policeman shows up at the door to arrest a man who is accused of committing a theft or murder?

1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 437:

The local police chief or magistrate of a town or city in India or the East Indies.


arrestable

A person who lies frequently may be cut of the same mental fabric as the arrestable criminal.

2000, Samuel Yochelson, Stanton Samenow, The Criminal Personality: A Profile for Change, page 253:

(law enforcement) Capable of, or suitable for, being arrested (taken into police custody).