firewater

firewater (countable and uncountable, plural firewaters)

A calque of a Native American language term, probably Ojibwe ishkodewaaboo (“alcohol”), from ishkodew- (“fire”) + -aaboo (“liquid”, glossed in older works as “water”). A number of other Algonquian and Siouan languages also refer to whiskey with compounds that mean "fire-water" (on which basis noted Algonquianist Leonard Bloomfield even reconstructed a Proto-Algonquian word for it, *eškwete·wa·po·wi, although this could not have existed). The motivation of the name is not entirely clear: It may refer to the “burning” feeling of ingesting high-proof alcohol. Low-quality spirits also often included ingredients such as pepper, tobacco juice, molasses, etc. Alternatively it may refer to the flammability of alcohol.
Non-alcohol-related senses are simply fire + water.

A continuously circulated firewater line supplies a deluge cooling system in each gathering center for fire containment.

A break in a firewater line at BP Whiting Refinery caused water with an oil-like sheen to spread outside the refinery's walls along a section of Indianapolis Boulevard Tuesday night.

2015 March 18, Karen Caffarini, “Cause of line break unknown at BP”, in Post-Tribune:

(manufacturing) Water for use in firefighting.


constabulary

From mediaeval Latin conestabularia, a noun use of the feminine version of conestabularius, from Latin constabulus, from comes stabuli, literally ‘master of the stables’.


headsman

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From Middle English heddysman, equivalent to head + -s- + -man. Cognate with Scots hedisman, heidisman (“head man; chief; commander”). Compare also Danish høvedsmand (“captain”), Swedish hövitsman (“captain”), Icelandic höfuðsmaður (“captain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”).

(obsolete or Scotland) A chief person; a head man

And of those base-minded jesters or buffons, some have beene seene, that even at the point of death would never leave their jesting and scoffing. He whom the heads-man threw off from the Gallowes cried out, ‘Row the Gally,’ which was his ordinarie by-word.

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

And made him Headsman, for we said, / "Who's next to be decapited / Cannot cut off another's head / Until he's cut his own off[…]"

1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC:

An executioner whose method of dispatching the condemned is decapitation.

(mining, historical) A labourer in a colliery who transports the coal from the workings to the horseway, and who is oftentimes assisted by a younger worker called a foal.

(nautical) One in command of a whaling vessel.


patrolman

On September 9, when a solitary Japanese patrolman tried to curtail the work of five Taiwanese who were cutting trees from a windbreak (in Anting settlement, Sinhua district), the accused responded "Taiwan is not Japan's land. Why are you stopping us?"

2006, Ping-hui Liao, David Der-wei Wang, Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895–1945, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page https://books.google.com/books?id=pHlwcjwt7fEC&pg=PT391:

A police officer, especially a junior officer assigned patrol duty instead of detection or supervision.


reformatory

/ɹəˈfɔɹməˌtɔɹi/

/ɹɪˈfɔː(ɹ)mətəɹi/

/ɹɪˈfɔː(ɹ)mətɹi/

It was the nicest-looking property Elwood had ever seen—a real school, a good one, not the forbidding reformatory he’d conjured the last few weeks.

2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 45:

A prison, especially one for juveniles; a reform school.


reform school

And through this one small error of judgment, Elwood’s life is changed when he is sent to a reform school called Nickel.

2019 July 26, Aminatta Forna, “The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead review”, in The Guardian:

(dated) A penal institution for juveniles, especially males.


MPS

Metropolitan Police Service
w:Metropolitan Police

(UK, law enforcement) Initialism of Metropolitan Police Service.


gendarme

en-noun

gendarme (plural gendarmes or gensdarmes)

Borrowed from French gendarme, from plural gendarmes, a re-spelling of gens d’armes (“people of arms", "armed people”).

A member of the gendarmerie, a military body charged with police duties.

The US is tempted to play the role of global gendarme because everyone knows that the UN, as it is, lacks the resources and capacity to fill this role.

2003, Daniele Archibugi, Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Debating Cosmopolitics, Verso, page 170:

The previous attempts foundered when they tried to take this gendarme directly.

1979, Chris Jones, Climbing in North America, →ISBN, page 118:

The Arete starts easily, with several beautiful, loping pitches leading to a striking gendarme.

1998, Climbing - Issues 178-180, page 64:

Continuing to the main summit involves ascents of the gendarmes (the first being the owl-eared one referred to in the next route description) and 140-foot rappels down their south sides.

2013, Joe Kelsey, Climbing and Hiking in the Wind River Mountains, →ISBN, page 259:


corrections officer

corrections officer (plural corrections officers)

Frank was proud of the fact that in all his years as a corrections officer, he had never been assaulted by an inmate.


fireboat

A harbor boat designed for pumping large volumes of harbor water onto dockside fires.

Löschboot

1. A harbor boat designed for pumping large volumes of harbor water onto dockside fires


fire marshal

(US, Philippines) A public official with police powers responsible for enforcing fire safety regulations, and sometimes, who also investigates suspicious fires.


rehabilitation

rehabilitation (countable and uncountable, plural rehabilitations)

/ˌɹiː.əˌbɪl.ɪˈteɪ.ʃən/

[ˌɹiː.əˌbɪl.ɪˈteɪ.ʃn̩]

From Middle French réhabilitation, from Medieval Latin rehabilitatio.

The working life span of a passenger carriage, on average, is between 30 and 35 years, so a steady replacement takes place quite naturally. The life span of a station, however, cannot be so easily reckoned, for it depends largely on the rehabilitation and upkeep of the existing structures.

1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, page 250:

Maybe now it should be clearer why Louis van Gaal has been telling anyone who cares to listen they should not be surprised if Manchester United’s rehabilitation takes longer than they would ideally like.

August 16 2014, Daniel Taylor, "Swansea upstage Manchester United in Louis van Gaal’s Premier League bow," guardian.co.uk

The process of rehabilitating somebody or something.


dragnet

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From drag + net, probably based on the model of Middle English draynet, dreynett (“dragnet”), Old English dræġnet, dræġnett (“dragnet”), equivalent to dray + net. Cognate with Swedish dragnät, Norwegian dragnett, from Icelandic dragnet.

The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives.[…]who, if anyone, is policing their use[?] Such concerns were sharpened further by the continuing revelations about how the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been using algorithms to help it interpret the colossal amounts of data it has collected from its covert dragnet of international telecommunications.

2013 July 26, Leo Hickman, “How algorithms rule the world”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 26:

(law enforcement) Heightened efforts by law enforcement personnel undertaken in order to capture suspects.

eftersøgning

Heightened efforts by law-enforcement personnel to capture suspects.


dragnet

en-verb

dragnet (third-person singular simple present dragnets, present participle dragnetting, simple past and past participle dragnetted)

dragnets (present singular third-person)
dragnetting (participle present)
dragnetted (participle past)
dragnetted (past)

In fact, Carty was not the man, but, after a police swoop had dragnetted twenty men suspected of having taken part in the business, he was lodged in Sligo jail and accused of this violence to the lady.

2010, Florence O'Donoghue, IRA Jailbreaks 1918-1921, →ISBN, page 164:

A May Day anti-capitalist protest last year in Seattle saw clashes between police and protesters, and the FBI had been dragnetting potential anarchists.

2013 September 19, Audrey Black, “Targeting Oppression”, in Eugene Weekly:

(law enforcement, transitive) To undertake heightened efforts to catch a suspect.


fire station

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The building where firefighters and fire trucks/fire engines are housed when not answering an alarm.


scalawag

Of obscure origin, perhaps from the name of the Shetland village of Scalloway (from Old Norse Skálavágr), known for its dwarf ponies and dwarf cattle.

(Philippines, law enforcement, military) rogue police; rogue military personnel


serve time

serve time (third-person singular simple present serves time, present participle serving time, simple past and past participle served time)

serves time (present singular third-person)
serving time (participle present)
served time (participle past)
served time (past)

(idiomatic) To be confined in prison or a similar institution, typically for wrongdoing that violates the law.


birdlime

(rhyming slang) Time; a jail term, the serving of a prison sentence.


precinct

From Middle English precinct, precincte, early 15th century, in sense of “district for government purposes”, from Medieval Latin precinctum, alternative form of praecinctum (“enclosure, boundary line”), neuter singular of praecinctus, perfect passive participle of Latin praecingō (“surround, gird”), from prae (“before”) + cingō (“surround, encircle”), from which also cinch.
Cognate to Italian precingere (“to encircle”).

(US, law enforcement) A subdivision of a city under the jurisdiction of a specific group of police; the police station situated in that district.


police station

When the ballots were opened on 19 November, Hsu Hsin-liang’s supporters at a polling station in Chungli City suspected fraud. As the crowd swelled to approximately a thousand, rioting erupted. One protester was killed and the Chungli police station was burned.

1999, Shelley Rigger, “Political reform under Chiang Ching-kuo (1972-1988)”, in Politics in Taiwan: Voting for democracy, Routledge, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 115:

In trying to stop him from exploiting more children, I was ensuring my parents and my siblings would be ostracised. She begged me not to go to the police station.

2014 August 29, Ruzwana Bashir, “The untold story of how a culture of shame perpetuates abuse. I know, I was a victim”, in The Guardian:

(law enforcement) A building serving as the headquarters of a branch of the police force, and sometimes as a temporary place of confinement for offenders.


gangbuster

A law enforcement officer who specializes in disrupting organized crime.


fire door

There are 10,000 fire doors on the Elizabeth Line, including these two at Liverpool Street that have been tested to tolerate a two-hour blaze at temperatures as high as 3,000°C.

2022 March 23, Paul Bigland, “We're counting down the days”, in RAIL, number 953, page 39, photo caption:

A fireproof door designed to stop fires spreading through buildings.

porta tallafoc

a fireproof door designed to stop fires spreading through buildings


banged up

My uncle has been banged up for ten years now; I haven't seen him in five.

(informal) Spending time in prison or jail.


narcotics

(law enforcement, law, politics) Pertaining to illicit drugs, especially psychoactive ones.


quint

A musical or piquet term, or a quintuplet

From Middle French quint, from Latin quīntus.

(firefighting) A vehicle used by firefighters that combines the capabilities of a fire engine and a fire truck, having the ability to provide vertical access as well as pump water to fight a fire.


scooper

(aviation, firefighting, informal) A type of air tanker waterbomber airplane, which is capable of landing on water, and directly scooping up water to fill its tanks, by skimming the water's surface with scoops delopyed.


lockdown

en-noun

lockdown (countable and uncountable, plural lockdowns)

→ Dutch: lockdown

→ German: Lockdown

→ Italian: lockdown

→ Japanese: ロックダウン (rokkudaun)

→ Polish: lockdown

→ Romanian: lockdown

→ Russian: локда́ун (lokdáun)

At the time of writing, no decisions had been made by the Government as to when or how lockdown restrictions might begin to be lifted. However, discussions were taking place in the industry about how social distancing could be maintained on the railway if some patronage were to return soon.

2020 May 20, Andrew Haines talks to Stefanie Foster, “Repurpose rail for the 2020s”, in Rail, page 29:

Fans relished the traditional FA Cup fanfare from the Coldstream Guards and the hymn Abide With Me before throwing themselves wholeheartedly into an experience they have been largely deprived of since the first coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.

2021 May 15, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea 0-1 Leicester”, in BBC Sport:

When a column of smoke appeared on Thursday over the Sitong Bridge overpass in the Haidian district of Beijing, it drew attention to a protester who had hung banners openly bashing China’s top leader by name and criticizing the country’s “zero Covid” policy, including one calling for “freedom and not lockdowns.”

2022 October 14, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Claire Fu, “China’s Internet Censors Race to Quell Beijing Protest Chatter”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-14, Asia Pacific:

The confinement of people in their own rooms (e.g., in a school) or cells (in a prison), or to their own homes or areas (e.g., in the case of a city- or nation-wide issue) as a security measure after or amid a disturbance or as a non-pharmaceutical intervention in a pandemic.

staat van inperking

confinement of people as a security measure


Dirty Harry

After Dirty Harry, a fictional police detective who (in the film) tells his partner that he is called Dirty Harry because he gets all the dirty jobs.

(figuratively) A police officer who is reckless, disregards practices and policies, or who practices vigilantism or uses excessive force.


duckbill

duckbill eel

Nettastoma parviceps, or Nessorhamphus ingolfianus

duckbill ray

Aetobatus narinari or Pteromylaeus bovinus

(firefighting) A device used to force padlocks.


bracelets

Of thirty bare yeares haue I
twice twenty bin enraged,
& of forty bin three tymes fifteene
in durance soundlie caged,
On yͤ lordlie loftes of Bedlam
with stubble softe & dainty,
braue braceletts Strong, sweet whips ding dong
with wholesome hunger plenty

c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)

"Sergeant," said Inspector Gilder, eyeing the black hands with wrath, "aren't you putting the bracelets on this fellow; he looks pretty dangerous."

1911, G. K. Chesterton, The Three Tools of Death:


chazzer

From Yiddish חזיר (khazer), from Hebrew חזיר (hazír).

(slang) A police officer, especially one who is corrupt.


tasking

Action officers receive taskings in many ways. A top boss will grab you in the hall and tell you to do something, some key official will give you multiple taskings right in the middle of your briefing, and you will pick up taskings in staff meetings […]

2007, Perry M. Smith, Daniel M. Gerstein, Assignment: Pentagon: How to Excel in a Bureaucracy:

(military, law enforcement) A task; an assigned item of work.


drafting

drafting (countable and uncountable, plural draftings)

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

(firefighting) The act or process of drawing water out of a source.


fire extinguisher

fire extinguisher (plural fire extinguishers)

/ˈfaɪəɹ ɪkˌstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ.ə(ɹ)/

A device that can be used to put out a fire. Usually a portable cylinder filled with carbon dioxide, dry powder or water, in the latter two cases with some means of pressurising the cylinder to expel the contents.


fire escape

Eight ladies with Ugandan associations had ascended the fire escape and were making their way through his room.

1975, Private Eye, numbers 340–366, page 198:

Any of the series of emergency doors, ladders, or stairs used to evacuate a building if a fire breaks out.

مخرج طوارئ

emergency doors, ladders etc. as a class

The entire escape route viewed as a whole.

(historical) Any apparatus designed to allow people to escape a burning building, such as a canvas tube for sliding down.


smokejumper

(US, Canada) A firefighter who parachutes into a remote area to combat wildfires and set up firebreaks.


DI

DI (countable and uncountable, plural DIs)

detective inspector
detective inspector#English

(law enforcement, Commonwealth) Initialism of detective inspector; a police rank.


A variant of the British 999, originally selected as an appropriate number for rotary-dial telephones and adapted in Australia because of the need to dial an initial 0 from remote exchanges to connect to the main trunk lines.

When you call 000, the Telstra operator usually answers the phone with "Emergency. Police, fire, or ambulance?"

The telephone number for emergency services in Australia.


Selected by the European Union as the 3-digit number fastest to dial on cellular and rotary phones without the likelihood of accidental dialing caused by hanging up a landline telephone, sometimes interpreted by phone networks as a 1.

When you call 112 in the United Kingdom, the call is automatically rerouted to 999 operators.

The telephone number for emergency services on all GSM cell phones and in the EU, Russia, United Kingdom, Ireland, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Ukraine, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome, the Seychelles, Uganda, East Timor, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, North Macedonia, Vatican City, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Saint Vincent.

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo

The telephone number for law enforcement in South Korea, Norway, Colombia, Serbia, Lebanon, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, and Mauritius.


roundhouse

Coordinate term: big house

[T]he gentlemen in the coffee room insisted upon the watch being called, or a constable. With considerable difficulty the two heroes were carried off to the round-house, and there lodged for the night.

1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 137

A circular prison, especially a small local lockup or station house.

(nautical, now historical) A privy near the bow of a vessel, especially as reserved for officers.

Crewe North Motive Power Depot is to be modernised completely. This includes the provision of a new coaling plant, ash handling plant, and two new locomotive sheds of the latest roundhouse type, each with 32 roads radiating from a 70-ft. dia. turntable.

1948 November and December, “Crewe M.P.D. to be Modernised”, in Railway Magazine, page 372:

Archaeologists working on HS2 in Birmingham have uncovered the remains of what is believed to be the world's oldest railway roundhouse at Curzon Street station.

2020 March 25, “Network News: HS2 work uncovers oldest roundhouse”, in Rail, page 16:

(rail transport) A circular building in which locomotives are housed, sometimes with a turntable.

депо

a circular building in which locomotives are housed

Coordinate term: wheelhouse

A central stone slab cist containing the burial was surrounded by a circles of stones placed on edge, probably to represent the round house in which the deceased had lived.

2019, Alan Staniforth, Cleveland Way, page 66:

(archaeology) A prehistoric dwelling typical of northwest Europe in the Iron Age and Bronze Age.

casa circular

(card games) In the game of pinochle, a meld consisting of a queen and king in each of the four suits.


abaddon

UK C19. From Abaddon, from Middle English, from Late Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἀβαδδών (Abaddṓn, “Abaddon”), from Hebrew אבדון (ābaddōn, “destruction, abyss”), from אבד (ābad, “to be lost, to perish”).

der

The prisoner, Money Moses, better known among thieves and fences as Moses the abaddon, has been, to my knowledge, for the last twenty years a receiver and dealer in stolen property.

c. 1839, Report of the Trial of the Great Gold Dust Robbery:

(archaic, British slang) An informer; a criminal who informs on other criminals to the authorities.


guardroom

A jail cell in which military prisoners are kept.


Black Maria

Unknown, though such vans were traditionally painted black. First attested in the 1830s.

The Upper Ten Thousand have plenty of cash—
At the Central Park, on the “Drive,” cut a dash;
They have their light wagons, fast horses beside;
In the free “Black Maria” the Lower Ten ride.

1867, Tony Pastor, “The Upper and Lower Ten Thousand”, in Tony Pastor’s Book of Six Hundred Comic Songs and Speeches:

(slang) A police van for transporting prisoners.


flashover

en-noun

flashover (countable and uncountable, plural flashovers)

The overhead line was energised at 25,000 volts and the height of the contact wire was reduced to 11 in. above the chimney, then to 5 and finally to 2 in.; at this last, short distance the flashover occurred, but all the men were perfectly safe because the current went direct to earth through the locomotive.

1960 April, “Talking of Trains: Safety with 25kV a.c.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 203:

An unintended electric discharge or arc over or around an insulator.


emergency service

emergency service (plural emergency services)

Only when one has seen a Control Office at first-hand does one realise the vast amount of unsparing but largely unsung work that is behind the eventual publication, perhaps, of a paragraph in this journal's "Motive Power Miscellany" recording the appearance, within hours of the complete blockage of a main line, of many of its trains, passenger and freight, on routes quite foreign to them; and of effective emergency services either side of the disaster area.

1962 August, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 133:

Any public service that deals with emergencies; especially the police, fire, ambulance, or lifeboat services.


six-pack

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Officer Bahash then obtained a copy of Grant's photograph from the DMV and placed it in a six-person photograph array (also known as a “six-pack”) for possible identification by two earlier victims.

2008, John N. Ferdico, Henry F. Fradella, Christopher D. Totten, Criminal Procedure for the Criminal Justice Professional, 10th edition, page 792:

(US, informal, law enforcement) A selection of six photographs, including one of a suspect, used for identification by a witness.


gendarmerie

We must defend it till the Gendarmerie turn out. Keep after me.

1908, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Bristol: J[ames] W[illiams] Arrowsmith, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, →OCLC, page 259:

A military body charged with police duties among the civilian population.


commissary

From Late Latin commissarius, from commissus, past participle of committō (“to commit, entrust to”). Doublet of commissar.

A store primarily serving persons in an institution, most often soldiers or prisoners.

лавка

“We tried to provide for you while you were in there. We may not have put as much on your commissary as your in-laws, but what we gave was more to us.”

2018, Tayari Jones, An American Marriage, Oneworld Publications, page 183:

An account which a prisoner uses to buy provisions, or the balance of that account.


freelancing

(EMS, fire service, law enforcement) The act of performing one's duties outside of the chain of command and SOPs.


coppish

And it was early morning, and the world was moist, when the crystal-gazer's husband, a freak in knickerbockers with an open coppish and a sabbath gamp, came over the stones outside his house to meet the holy travellers.

a. 1954 (date written), Dylan Thomas, “The Holy Six”, in Adventures in the Skin Trade (A New Directions Paperbook; no. 183), New York, N.Y.: New Directions Publishing Corporation, published 1969, →ISBN, page 129:


John Law

A personification of law enforcement; a police officer.


statie

Alan supposed the Staties would arrest him if they ran across him while they pursued other lines of investigation, but otherwise, no. They had more important things to do.

(New England, slang, law enforcement) A state trooper.


plainclothes

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Ordinary civilian clothes, rather than uniform.


assume the position

en-verb

assume the position (third-person singular simple present assumes the position, present participle assuming the position, simple past and past participle assumed the position)

assumes the position (present singular third-person)
assuming the position (participle present)
assumed the position (participle past)
assumed the position (past)

A day or two later we took down another seller and this time the rookie performs the search. Assume the position! he tells the guy. So the guy leans against the side of the car.

2002, James Harper Walker, Inside Your Local Police:

(idiomatic, US, law enforcement) To turn away, with one's hands in a visible and unmovable position, so that one can be searched.


stakeout

The police had a stakeout in place where they expected the crime to occur.

The act of watching a location or people, generally covertly.


chummy

What happens when the Old Bill turns up and want to look at 'chummies^([sic]) dental records, guv, 'cos 'e's bitten a bloke's ear off in the pub'?

2002, Roy C. Lilley, Paul Lambden, The Tool Kit for Dental Risk Management, page 21:

(law enforcement slang) Nickname for a person, especially a suspect or criminal.


PC Plod

From the policeman in Enid Blyton's Noddy books.

(British, informal, derogatory) A policeman (implying that he is dull and slow).


watchhouse

A small prison attached to a police station, usually used on a temporary basis.


wooden-top

The expression may be a reference to the wooden construction of a bobby's custodian helmet.

Immediately a big wooden-top came in. He was young and blond.

1988, Derek Raymond, The Devil's Home on Leave, Ballantine Books, page 151:

It is Detective Chief Superintendent Cohn Harpur, one of the bosses, but just a wooden-top like all the rest.

1991, Bill James, The Lolita Man, W. W. Norton & Company, page 41:

(British, informal, idiomatic) A uniformed police officer.


good time

en-noun

good time (countable and uncountable, plural good times)

let the good times roll

a good time was had by all

Q: Did you have a good time at your friend's wedding reception? A: Yes, it was a good time for everyone.

(countable) A period of time spent doing some pleasant, enjoyable or entertaining activity.

Sex on female units is treated as a "disgusting and degrading practice," and women have lost accrued good-time and gone to solitary confinement for as little as a peck on the cheek.

1984 August 18, R. L. Richardson, “Women In Cages”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 7:

(uncountable) The reduction of a prisoner's sentence for good conduct while imprisoned.


gaffle

From Middle English gaffolle, a borrowing from Middle Dutch gaffel, gafel (“fork”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *gabulu (“fork”), related to Old English gafol, ġeafel (“fork”).

(historical, weaponry) A portable fork of iron or wood in which the heavy musket formerly in use was rested that it might be accurately aimed and fired.


gaffle

en-verb

gaffle (third-person singular simple present gaffles, present participle gaffling, simple past and past participle gaffled)

gaffles (present singular third-person)
gaffling (participle present)
gaffled (participle past)
gaffled (past)

In other words , you know the trouble around here — and this is pertinent , too — that there have been too many committees in which the minority has allowed itself to be gaffled into submission and silence.

1958, René Albert Wormser, Foundations, Their Power and Influence, page 363:

They then stole a maroon Oldsmobile Delta Eighty-Eight from a parking lot on Harvard Avenue and resumed their search for a victim to “gaffle."

1994, North eastern reporter. second series - Volume 623, page 76:

SHEILA: I'm late — 'cause I just got gaffled G ROC (Overlapping): Got gaffled?! Whatchu mean you got gaffled?!

2004, Harry Justin Elam, Robert Alexander, The Fire this Time: African-American Plays for the 21st Century, page 410:

Boo savored the sweetness of strength and gaffled his peers for their lunch money.

2008, Jeffery Renard Allen, Holding Pattern: Stories, page 226:

I thought back to the last time I'd seen my first and only boyfriend, recalling his smile as he'd gone off to do battle for me, saving me from getting gaffled.

2012, Kresley Cole, Poison Princess, page 149:

There really are no paying customers with any sense of good, orderly direction going to any perceivable destination with purpose, except to sponge off of others or to gaffle intending drug buyers.

2015, Douglas Meriwether, The Dao of Doug 2: the Art of Driving a Bus, page 154:

So I commenced to yell, And old man Pease he hugged his knees and gaffled to his pail.

1916, Holman Day, Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse, page 189:

The honey birds gaffle – I'm coming to you soon, I'm coming to you as they leave , and one insect starts to call, and will call all night, with the exact monotonous cheep-cheep of young English house-sparrows in June.

Leaving that to the rappers, it's their business But to be down or not to be down Is still debatable for plausible reasons For one seldom knows the directions others are traveling in Or if one-time wants to do some gaffling

2011, Hakim Askia, Compelling Thoughts, page 125:

To talk without a purpose, usually about inane or pointless topics; to babble.


OP

en-noun

OP (countable and uncountable, plural OPs)

(military, law enforcement) Initialism of observation post.


standpipe

The water supply of a building for the use of firefighters.


crusher

From crush + -er (agent noun suffix), or, for one who elicits a crush, + -er (patient suffix).


carding

carding (countable and uncountable, plural cardings)

(Canada, law enforcement) A police practice where an officer stops, questions, and documents information from a person to gather intelligence, when no crime or suspicion of crime has been committed.


pursuivant

From Middle English pursevant et al., from Old French pursuivant, present participle of pursuivre (“to follow”). Doublet of pursuant.

(law enforcement, by extension) A warrant officer.


fireline

The ranger said that working a fire is called being "on the fireline."

A row of firefighters seeking to stop spread of a forest fire.

The line where firefighters intend to stop a spreading fire.


fireline

en-verb

fireline (third-person singular simple present firelines, present participle firelining, simple past and past participle firelined)

firelines (present singular third-person)
firelining (participle present)
firelined (participle past)
firelined (past)


FSB

From Russian ФСБ (FSB), initialism of Федеральная Служба Безопасности (Federalʹnaja Služba Bezopasnosti, “Federal Security Service”).

Possible victims included Roman Tsepov, Putin’s bodyguard in 1990s St Petersburg, who died after drinking tea in 2004 at a local FSB office.

2020 August 20, Luke Harding, “Alexei Navalny and the long history of poisoned Kremlin critics”, in The Guardian:

(initialism, Russia, politics, espionage, law enforcement) The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.


superintendency

en-noun

superintendency (countable and uncountable, plural superintendencies)

(uncountable) The condition of being a superintendent.


flatfoot

From flat + foot. Piecewise doublet of platypus.

(colloquial, archaic, derogatory, law enforcement) (plural typically flatfoots) A policeman.


on firecall

On call, with regard to a firefighter or unit.


QPP

QPP (countable and uncountable, plural QPPs)

Sûreté du Québec
Sûreté du Québec#English

(law enforcement, Canada, uncountable) Initialism of Quebec Provincial Police (Sûreté du Québec); the police force of the Canadian province of Quebec..


juvie

juvie (countable and uncountable, plural juvies)

From juvenile + -ie with elision; morphologically analogous to bougie = bourgeoisie + -ie/-y.

youth detention centre
youth detention centre#English

(colloquial) Synonym of juvenile hall (youth detention centre).

établissement pénitentiaire pour mineurs


freelancer

(EMS, fire service, law enforcement) One who performs duties outside of the chain of command and SOPs.


send up

en-verb

send up (third-person singular simple present sends up, present participle sending up, simple past and past participle sent up)

sends up (present singular third-person)
sending up (participle present)
sent up (participle past)
sent up (past)

The judge sent him up for three years.

"I guess you're a wise one, all right, but what's the use? I tell you we've got enough on you already to send you up. You might as well talk straight."

1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, Carroll & Graf, published 1997, →ISBN, page 161:

(transitive, US, slang) To put in prison.


prison-bound

en-adj

prison-bound (comparative more prison-bound, superlative most prison-bound)

more prison-bound (comparative)
most prison-bound (superlative)


prison chaser

A "prison chaser" is a soldier assigned to the task of guarding military prisoners who have been assigned and are performing fatigue detail.

1943, John Riley Craf, Army Selectee's Handbook for Those Men who Will be Called for Duty Under the Selective Training ..., page 50:

When that training was complete, I was given temporary assignment as a prison chaser (guard in a Brig).

2003, Frank Murphy, Wia, Corpsman Up, page 154:

My first experience as a prison chaser wasn't all that pleasant. One burly, bald headed prisoner had given me a hard time.

2004, Joseph Quitman Johnson, Baby of Bataan: Memoir of a 14 Year Old Soldier in World War II, page 107:

According to Ronal Branson's website, he joined the U.S. military in 1963 and was assigned to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he became a "prison chaser", an individual who oversaw prison work detail.

2006, Issue Brief - A Public Policy Paper of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies March 2006:

(military) A prison guard; particularly one who guards military prisoners on fatigue duty.


chief constable

en-noun

chief constable (plural chief constables)

(British) The chief of police of most territorial UK police forces, except the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police.


mump

en-verb

mump (third-person singular simple present mumps, present participle mumping, simple past and past participle mumped)

mumps (present singular third-person)
mumping (participle present)
mumped (participle past)
mumped (past)

Perhaps borrowed through obsolete Dutch mompen (“to cheat, swindle, deceive”), according to Kroonen, a derivative of Proto-Germanic *mump- (“to stain”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *mm̥bʰ-neh₂- Also akin to German mimpfeln (“to mumble”), Icelandic mumpa (“to take into the mouth”). See also English mum.
While Kroonen claims Ancient Greek μέμφομαι (mémphomai, “I blame, accuse”) and the Germanic forms are reconcilable and related, Beekes rejects this, stating that Germanic -p- cannot here correspond to Greek -φ- and that this etymological connection is not widely considered reliable.

cog

(Of a police officer) to accept a small gift or bribe in exchange for services.


TIC

en-noun

TIC (countable and uncountable, plural TICs)

TICs must be admitted by a defendant in addition to the crimes for which they have been convicted.

offence to be taken into consideration#English

(countable, UK, criminal law, law enforcement) Initialism of offence to be taken into consideration.


smoke eater

Coordinate term: smoke blower

A device or piece of equipment designed to remove smoke from the air.


plainclothesman

Coordinate term: plainclotheswoman

A police officer (especially a detective) who wears civilian clothes when on duty.


PSAP

public-safety answering point
w:public-safety answering point

Initialism of public-safety answering point.

personal sound amplification product
w:personal sound amplification product

Initialism of personal sound amplification product.


federale

[fɛdəˈɹɑːli]

Back-formation from the plural, from Mexican Spanish federales, from federal.

(informal, chiefly California, also MLE slang and Hispanic slang) A federal law enforcement officer, usually belonging to the United States government.


suicide by cop

(informal) A suicide in which a person points a firearm at an armed police officer to provoke them to shoot.


jaws of life

By analogy with an actual jaw and the fact that this mechanical device allows the possibility of preserving the life of the victim being rescued.

2005, Mary Gordon, Pearl
Isn't there some machine used in car wrecks to extricate people called the jaws of life?

The power of the “jaws of life” were shown first and set aside.

2005, Chuck McCann, Short, Shorter and Shorter Stories, Volume 1, page 388

2009, Tony Evans, Tony Evan's Book of Illustrations
Even when drivers have had wrecks through no one's fault but their own, rescue crews still employ the "jaws of life" to get them out of trouble.

For the most terrible of car accidents, jaws of life have to be used to extricate the injured.

(firefighting) Emergency rescue equipment used to open a severely damaged passenger vehicle with a strong mechanical jaw function that forcibly pushes or pulls metal components apart, to quickly and somewhat safely extricate the trapped occupants.


water police

The police department charged with patrolling harbours and waterways by boat.


vic

(Ryotaro Dojima): We haven't found the cause of death for the first vic, and now we've got a second one just like it […]

2008, Atlus Co., Ltd., Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (04/16, Evening)

We did find some black fibers stuck between the victim's teeth, presumably from a glove, and lastly, seeing as the vic was found completely naked, we can't process her clothes for any potential evidence.

“The vic was found by some birdwatchers at the Theler Wetlands,” he began.

(law enforcement, slang) A victim of a homicide.


RUC

Whereas the R.U.C. was highly militarized and overwhelmingly Protestant, the current force has tried to be more representative of the community it polices — although because of a “substantial” terrorist threat from paramilitary groups opposed to the peace process, it is the only police force in the United Kingdom whose members regularly carry firearms.

2023 September 5, Megan Specia, “Northern Ireland Police Chief Resigns Amid Mounting Scandals”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Royal Ulster Constabulary
w:Royal Ulster Constabulary

(Northern Ireland, historical, law enforcement) Initialism of Royal Ulster Constabulary (now known as the PSNI)


bagnio

From Italian bagno, from Latin balneum (“bath”). Doublet of bain, balaneion, and banya.

(obsolete) In Turkey, a prison for slaves.


criminalist

A person who specializes in criminal law.


Bambi bucket

A collapsible bucket suspended from a helicopter performing firefighting operations and used for lifting and dumping water or fire retardant chemicals.


law enforcement

Law enforcement is the duty of police, sheriffs and other government officials.

The task of ensuring obedience to the law.


12 (countable and uncountable, plural 12s)

(slang, US, derogatory) Collectively, police or law enforcement.

Collectively, police or law enforcement.
See also: fuck 12


fire axe

A special type of axe used by firefighters, typically featuring a pick-shaped pointed poll (area of the head opposite the cutting edge) and in a vivid color to make it easily visible during an emergency.


lazaret

Borrowed from French lazaret, from Italian lazzareto (archaic), lazzaretto, lazzeretto; see further at lazaretto. Doublet of lazaretto.

The liver is the lazaret of bile, / But very rarely executes its function

1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto II, (please specify the stanza number):

(historical, also figuratively) A building such as a hospital, or occasionally a ship, used to isolate sick people to prevent the spread of infectious diseases; a quarantine.


sky marshal

(US, law enforcement) An armed, undercover guard on a commercial-airline flight.


air marshal

T.S.A. said its office of inspection makes quality assurance visits to ensure that the air marshals are properly prepared for their missions. […] Employees with the air marshals view their jobs as crucial to overall efforts to protect airplanes and airports from terrorist attacks.

2018 April 25, Ron Nixon, “Scandals and Investigations, but Few Arrests, for Air Marshals Program”, in The New York Times:


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.


probie

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

A probie never complains. A probie keeps his mouth shut, his eyes open. A probie is never idle. A probie is always learning or drilling or cleaning. That's why you're still called a probie: for one year after you leave training school.

1997. Steve Delson. "The Fire Inside: Firefighters Talk About Their Lives", Page 41

(slang, firefighting) A neophyte firefighter.


fire chief

A leader of a fire station; an officer in charge of firemen and fighting fires.


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:


DT

en-noun

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.


K-9 unit

Humorous homophone of canine from an old vaudeville show.

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


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.


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.


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.


ODC

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


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.


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.


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.


shoofly

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


fire load

The quantity of combustible matter in a given area, or the quantity of heat that can be generated by its combustion.


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.


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


fireman's carry

en-noun

fireman's carry (usually uncountable, plural fireman's carries)

A technique that allows a person to carry another person on the shoulders without assistance.


cubie

[…] you can see that the corner cubie in question is detachable […]

Each of the tiles is actually part of a small cube, or cubie.

1989, Dennis Merritt, Building Expert Systems in Prolog:

Each nine-cubie face is capable of being rotated en bloc.

2003, Victor Percy Snaith, Groups, Rings and Galois Theory:

One of the smaller cubes making up a Rubik's cube.


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:


building code

A mandatory set of rules on building design, construction, testing, inspection, and maintenance to protect public health, safety, and welfare.


gallows bird

From gallows + bird. Compare virtually identical German construction Galgenvogel (literally “gallows-fowl" or "gallows-bird”), and French construction 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

en-noun

officer-involved shooting (plural officer-involved shootings)

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


OIC

(law enforcement) Initialism of officer in the case.


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


can man

August 29 2002, Jim Dwyer, "How the Fire Commissioner Saw It" [book review of Strong of Heart by Thomas Von Essen], The New York Times,
Mr. Feehan would reflect on the role of the "can man," the raw young firefighter assigned to haul an extinguisher up the stairs.

In ten seconds, I was dressed and walking out the door of my room at the station. . . . By the time two minutes passed,, Caesar was driving the engine onto the streets of Upper Darby; Paulie and Red were the can man and the hydrant man, riding behind.

2004, Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper, →ISBN, page 141:

Douglas Oelschlager was the can man, bringing up extinguishers.

2006, Jim Dwyer, Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes, →ISBN, page 199:

(informal) A firefighter whose task is to haul a fire extinguisher.


psyops

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.


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


hostage negotiator

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.


antiterror

(law enforcement, military) Opposing or preventing terrorism.


psyop

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


bluecoat

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

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


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

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

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.


antiviolence

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

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

RD (countable and uncountable, plural RDs)

(US, law enforcement) Initialism of reporting district.


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.


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.


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


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


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


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.


waterbomber

Some 50 firefighters, 10 tankers and waterbombers battled the grass and scrub blaze, which began about 12.30pm.

2009 February 28, Anthony Dowsley, Jane Metlikovec, “Relief for Victorians as weather fails to hit extremes”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 2009-02-28:

(firefighting, aviation) An aircraft that engages in waterbombing, usually in the course of fighting a wildfire.


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.


fireperson

en-noun

fireperson (plural firepersons or firepeople)

firepersons (plural)
firepeople (plural)

(nonstandard, rare) A firefighter of any gender.


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.


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.


polaski

Named for a forester, Edward Pulaski, who designed the tool.

A polaski is a cross between a pick, an^([sic]) standard axe, and a broad axe. It is used to cut through buried roots.

2002, Kent J. Johnson, Garden Railroading: Getting Started in the Hobby:

A shovel, a polaski (fire axe) and a gieke can for putting out campfires, disinfectant for cleaning outhouses and picnic tables.

2011, Sid Marty, Leaning on the Wind: Under the Spell of the Great Chinook, page 285:

It was equipped with two water tanks, a pump and one inch rubber hose, plus the normal shovels, polaskis, first aid equipment, and radios.

(firefighting) A fire fighting hand tool consisting of ax or adz head on a wooden handle, used to dig a fireline.


antitrafficking

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


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 c. 1934 in a paper by E. Huntress, L. Stanley, and A. Parker. The verbal use 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


helitanker

MORE than a dozen fire crews and two helitankers are battling a grass fire west of Geelong as temperatures across the state hit 40C.

2009 January 28, Sarah Wotherspoon, “Mercury rising as firefighters battle grass blaze”, in Herald Sun, archived from the original on 2009-03-04:

A helicopter used in firefighting, especially against forest fires, which drops water or other fire retardant on the fire.


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.


OCB

(law enforcement) Initialism of organized crime bureau.


helicopter bucket

en-noun

helicopter bucket (plural helicopter buckets)

A bucket, often collapsible, which is suspended from a helicopter performing firefighting operations and is used for lifting and dumping water or fire retardant chemicals.


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:


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.


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.

“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:


nozzleman

A man responsible for controlling a nozzle, as when spraying concrete or in firefighting.


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.


IAB

internal affairs
internal affairs#English

(law enforcement) Initialism of internal affairs bureau.


QPF

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


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.


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


SQ

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


Sûreté du Québec

(Quebec, law enforcement) the Quebec provincial police force


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)


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.


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.


antivandal

(law enforcement) Opposing or proscribing vandalism.


plastic plod

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


PCSO

Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office
w:Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office

(Philippines) Initialism of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.


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.


increaser

(firefighting) An adapter for connecting hoses of differing diameters.


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).


bastille

French Revolution
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
William Cobbett
William IV
storming of the Bastille

The noun is derived from Middle English bastile, bastel (“fortification for attack mounted on a barge or wheels; projecting part of a fortification, bastion, turret; fortified encampment of a besieging army; structure carrying armed men on an elephant’s back; (figuratively) refuge, shelter; protector”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman bastile, bastille, Middle French bastille, and Old French baastel, basstel (“fortification; fortified tower; temporary fortification constructed for attack or defence; (small) castle or fortress”) (modern French bastille; compare Medieval Latin bastīle), from bastide (“fortification; fortress”) with the ending modified after nouns ending in -ille (from Latin -īle (suffix forming place names)). Bastide is derived from Old Occitan bastida (“fortification; (Provence) country mansion”), from bastir (“to build, construct”) + -ida (suffix forming nouns); while bastir is from *bastīre, from Frankish *bastijan (“to sew; to weave”), from Proto-West Germanic *bast (“fibre; rope”), from Proto-Germanic *bastaz (“fibre; rope”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰask- ~ *bʰasḱ- (“bundle, heap, load”) but this is disputed.
Sense 2.1 (“jail or prison, especially one regarded as mistreating its prisoners”) is from the Bastille in Paris, France. Known in full as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, it was a former fortress used as a prison by the French monarchy in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Bastille was stormed by a crowd on 14 July 1789 at the start of the French Revolution and later demolished, becoming an important symbol for the French Republican movement.
Sense 2.2 (“workhouse”) was possibly popularized by the English politician William Cobbett (1763–1835) who opposed the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (4 & 5 William IV, chapter 76; often called the “New Poor Law”). This Act made relief or welfare for poor people only available through workhouses, and ensured that the working conditions were harsh so that only the truly destitute would apply for relief.
The verb is derived from the noun.
cognates
* Late Latin bastile (“wooden siege tower”), bastilla, bastillia, bastillus, bastellum (“fortification; wooden siege tower”)

nb...

bastayle, bastele, bastell, bastelle, bastil, bastill, bastyle, bastyll, bastylle, (Northern England) baistell,

nb...

Commencing with the Accession of William IV.

J. Booker; Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co.; J. M. Richardson; Parbury, Allen, and Co.; J. Hatchard and Son; J. Ridgway; E. Jeffery and Son; J. Rodwell; Calkin and Budd; R. H. Evans; J. Booth; and T. C. Hansard.

cog

(British, derogatory) Synonym of workhouse (“an institution for homeless poor people funded by the local parish, where the able-bodied were required to work”)


lathi

en-noun

lathi (countable and uncountable, plural lathis)

Lathi shares its basic principles with other martial arts.

(uncountable) A martial art based on stick fighting originally practiced in India.


executioneress

Twelve umbrellas, covering as many Bo-fetiche priestesses, followed by two brass shields, a large drum, two large scimitar-shaped blades, fretted as usual, and having skulls on the hilts, eighteen Bo Kpo in red avo, six executioneresses in leopard cloths of yellow with black spots, silver horns and bracelets; a number of black affairs like Highlanders’ targets, and five flags.

1874, J. A[lfred] Skertchly, “The So-Sin Custom—(continued)”, in Dahomey as It Is: Being a Narrative of Eight Months’ Residence in That Country, […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 267:


SEAT

(US, aviation, firefighting) Acronym of single-engine air tanker.


antipaedophile

en-adj

antipaedophile (comparative more antipaedophile, superlative most antipaedophile)

more antipaedophile (comparative)
most antipaedophile (superlative)

For example, a voice accusing a man of being a paedophile might be based on recent TV news programmes about antipaedophile vigilante groups, plus the memory of having been accused of being a pervert by a neighbour, plus fears that he might be a secret paedophile because he enjoyed reading Lolita.

2005, Hazel E. Nelson, Cognitive-behavioural therapy with delusions and hallucinations, page 217:


wardress

The door opened and the wardress came in.

1993, Pat Barker, The Eye in the Door (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 369:


po-po

→ Dutch: popo

Green's Dictionary of Slang
Police officer

From various words by shortening and reduplication.
The "posterior" sense may be reduplication of the initial syllable of that word, with modification of the vowel according to its spelling. Compare German Popo (“bottom”) from Latin pōdex (“anus”).
The "police" sense may come from either the initial syllable of police or the initial letters of the words police officer. Compare PO.

(by extension) A prison officer, corrections officer, prison guard.


speed trap

A section of a roadway where speeds of vehicles are monitored by authorities.


correctional facility

en-noun

correctional facility (plural correctional facilities)

For inmates in the state's correctional facilities, a typical breakfast menu consists of cereal, toast, jam, jelly, doughnuts, coffee and fruit.

1982 December 19, Donovan Wilson, “Prison Food: Not Fancy, But—”, in New York Times, archived from the original on 2020-12-21:

On Oct. 19, the Standish city council voted to allow federal prisoners, including detainees from Gitmo, to be housed at the local correctional facility.

2009 October 22, Steven Gray, “Michigan: Send Us Your Prison Inmates”, in Time, archived from the original on 2019-08-08:

(chiefly US, formal, euphemistic) A prison, reformatory, or similar institution in which people are confined for the purpose of punishment and/or social rehabilitation.


consent search

consent search (plural consent searches)

A warrantless search made by United States law enforcement personnel with the consent of the individual whose person or property is being searched.


work release

work release (countable and uncountable, plural work releases)

A program permitting a prisoner a leave of absence from prison to undertake normal employment.


hatchman

A prison guard charged with checking on the prisoner by looking through the hatch.


9-1-1
Federal Communication Commission
National Emergency Number Association
United States

The official form of the service's name in regulations and materials from the United States National Emergency Number Association and Federal Communication Commission.


9-1-1 (countable and uncountable, plural 9-1-1s)


NFA

Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin said the case has been classified as "no further action" (NFA) due to lack of evidence.

2020 November 24, “Individuals linked to Chin Peng's ashes will not face charges - minister”, in Malaysiakini:

ACP Nik Ezanee closed the investigation by classifying it as no further action (NFA) after hearing about the woman's plight.

2021 January 31, Farik Zolkepli, “PJ police go the extra mile to help the needy”, in The Star:

Police have completed investigations into a Physical Education (PE) teacher who allegedly made a rape joke in front of his students at school, and have classified it as No Further Action (NFA).

2021 August 5, Muhaamad Hafis Nawawi, “Case of teacher who allegedly made rape joke classified as NFA”, in New Straits Times:

no further action
no further action#English

(law enforcement, criminal law, UK, Malaysia) Initialism of no further action; a potential outcome for a suspect from a police investigation.


NFA

en-verb

NFA (third-person singular simple present NFAs, present participle NFAing or NFA'ing, simple past and past participle NFAd or NFA'd or NFAed)

NFAs (present singular third-person)
NFAing (participle present)
NFA'ing (participle present)
NFAd (participle past)
NFAd (past)
NFA'd (participle past)
NFA'd (past)
NFAed (participle past)
NFAed (past)

After that interview, I think we can NFA him.

(law enforcement slang, UK) To formally end the police investigation of a suspect with no further action.


antismuggler

Thailand has built an antismuggler and antiterrorist fence along the Malaysian border.

1996, Martin Ira Glassner, Political geography, page 90:

(law enforcement) Acting to combat or prevent the activities of smugglers.


good cop bad cop

A psychological tactic used for interrogation, involving one police officer playing the role of intimidating adversary, and another that of friend with whom the subject is encouraged to bond.


underburn

underburn (third-person singular simple present underburns, present participle underburning, simple past and past participle underburned or underburnt)

underburns (present singular third-person)
underburning (participle present)
underburned (participle past)
underburned (past)
underburnt (participle past)
underburnt (past)

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

From Middle English underbrennen (“to set on fire, burn up”), equivalent to under- + burn.


beat cop

(US, slang) A police officer who patrols the streets on foot (walks the beat).


antiviolent

en-adj

antiviolent (comparative more antiviolent, superlative most antiviolent)

more antiviolent (comparative)
most antiviolent (superlative)

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


chum up

en-verb

chum up (third-person singular simple present chums up, present participle chumming up, simple past and past participle chummed up)

chums up (present singular third-person)
chumming up (participle present)
chummed up (participle past)
chummed up (past)

They have a practice of “chumming up” a new fellow-prisoner—beating him with old swords and staves kept in the prison for the purpose, to exact a fee of a half-crown.

1844 January 13, The Spectator, volume 17, number 811, page 28:

1849, John Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, revised by Henry Ellis, London: Henry G. Bohn, Volume 2, p. 452,
Mr. Miller. They are not very nice whom they chum up?
Boot. Not very; they would as soon chum you up as anybody else.

(obsolete, UK, prison slang, transitive) To initiate (a new prisoner) through a ritual involving beating him with sticks and swords, accompanied by music, to extort money from him.


detention centre

en-noun

detention centre (plural detention centres)

Australian immigration detention facilities

2002, Russell Hogg, Chapter 1: Prisoners and the Penal Estate in Australia, David Brown, Meredith Wilkie (editors), Prisoners as Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons, page 3,
All jurisdictions have their own prison systems, although the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) has only one remand centre and one periodic detention centre.

A facility in which people are detained (held in custody); a jail.


antikidnap

He was never seen again, and the case remains unsolved today. Its haunting aftermath produced new antikidnap legislation[…]

2002, Michael Newton, The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings, page 187:

A first step in a company's defense against executive kidnapping is to develop a policy and obtain approval of an antikidnap plan.

2010, John Fay, Contemporary Security Management, page 359:

(law enforcement) Preventing or countering kidnapping.


antikidnapping

In the capital on Friday, a city police commander, Esteban Robles Espinosa, 52, who once headed the department’s antikidnapping division, was shot and killed as he left his house at 7:30 a.m.

2008 May 10, James C. Mckinley Jr., “Caught in a Swirl of Drug Violence, Mexico Vows to Fight Back”, in New York Times:


probation officer

probation officer (plural probation officers)

A law enforcement officer who supervises offenders who have been released from incarceration and, often, recommends sentencing in courts of law.


smokey

Short for Smokey Bear (“a cartoon Park Ranger”).

By the time we got into Tulsa Town
We had eighty-five trucks in all
But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf
And them bears was wall-to-wall.
Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper
They even had a bear in the air.

1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall:

The middle position, or "rocking chair," is so called because the drivers in the middle don't have to worry about watching for smokeys.

1977, Terry Cook, Vans and the Truckin' Life, page 27:

I was keeping an eye out for the smokeys who were no doubt hiding and waiting for unsuspecting tourists on the way in from Jacksonville.

2007, Ben W. Thompson, M'Naghten Rules, →ISBN:

Well let me tell you why I came, Crash: I need something from you, tonight. I had a four-man team for a big grab, lost one to smokies. I came looking to replace him, if you're still a badass.

2014, Nic Pizzolatto, 42:30 from the start, in True Detective, season 1, episode 4, spoken by Ginger (Joseph Sikora):

(CB slang) A state trooper. By extension, a cop, police officer.