Police Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

Citations in the Category Police

Police, cops, officers, correctional officers, security guards, military police. You can also see entries assigned to this category.

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cellblock n. Pulled off the streets, stripped of guns and badges, kept inside four walls and away—as much as possible—from the public, officers who are put on desk duty because their conduct is under investigation find themselves far from the enforcement activities they signed up to do. “We like to call it the ‘cellblock’ because it is like you are in prison,” said an officer who spent more than 18 months watching surveillance video while authorities investigated an accusation that he had struck a suspect. [English Police New or Nonce Slang] [full cite] (Nov. 30, 2008)

cherries and blueberries n.pl. “What is cherries and blueberries?” “it refers to the red and blue lights (cherries=red, blueberries=blue).” [English Police Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 16, 2007)

cherry rack n. What were a few other choices you had picked out for a skate name? Let’s see, I was also thinking about being Cherry Rack, but most people don’t know what a cherry rack is. It’s a slang term for the light rack on top of a police car. [English Police Slang] [full cite] (May. 8, 2006)

chiefs disease n. The CHP’s fraud task force investigated possible abuse of disability retirement, specifically among its highest ranking officers.…Most startling of all, 80 percent of assistant chiefs retired on disability. Almost as many deputy chiefs did the same.…One source says the panel has subpoenaed more than two dozen people since mid-October and that the jurors are looking not only at specific cases but at the entire practice of what was known as “chiefs disease.” [California English Police] [full cite] (Nov. 28, 2006)

Cinderella analysis n. If suspects claim the shoes are not theirs or that they had not been wearing them, scientists will be able to test their claims using a technique known as “Cinderella analysis”, which compares the wear on other shoes worn by them. [English Police] [full cite] (Jan. 31, 2007)

clean skin n. They use public transport, not Ferraris, pay their rent and council tax on time, hold down a boring job and never get in trouble with the law. These are the “clean skins” or “lilywhites”—the new drugs traffickers who dwarf the activities of the old English crime “families.” [English Crime & Prisons Police] [full cite] (Jul. 15, 2005)

clean-skin n. The fear has always been the so-called “clean skin’—that’s a person whose documents are completely legitimate, are not forged. [English Police Politics Slang] [full cite] (Apr. 6, 2007)

cold show n. Salkowitz identified the thief without exposing herself—Morgante says that’s called a “cold show”—and the suspect left personal items in the vehicle, conveniently tying him to the scene. [English Police Jargon] [full cite] (Apr. 17, 2006)

combat fashion n. Just after dawn, more than 75 police cars race to Times Square, lights flashing, then converge in what’s called “combat fashion.” Each backs halfway onto the sidewalk in a daunting show of municipal muscle and readiness. [English Automobiles & Transportation Police Jargon] [full cite] (Sep. 11, 2006)

comp n. His first assignment as he shadowed the team: cleaning up a three-week “comp” near Milwaukee, Wisc. That’s shorthand for “an apartment in which someone died and laid, unfound, for three weeks.” [English Biology Police Jargon Abbreviation] [full cite] (Jun. 11, 2007)

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