Law enforcement jargon refers to a large body of acronyms, abbreviation

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase...

s, code

Code

A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....

s and slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

 used by law enforcement personnel to provide quick concise descriptions of people, places, property and situations, in both spoken and written communication. These vary between countries and to a lesser extent regionally. For the purpose of this article, only English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 speaking countries are considered.

• ABH: Actual bodily harm
  Actual bodily harm
  Assault occasioning actual bodily harm is a statutory offence of aggravated assault in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Hong Kong and the Solomon Islands...
  
  
• B&E: Breaking and entering
  Burglary
  Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...
  
  
• BOP: Breach of peace
• D&D: Drunk And Disorderly
  Public intoxication
  Public intoxication, also known as "drunk and disorderly", is a summary offense in many countries rated to public cases or displays of drunkenness...
  
  
• DIP: Drunk In Public
  Public intoxication
  Public intoxication, also known as "drunk and disorderly", is a summary offense in many countries rated to public cases or displays of drunkenness...
  
  
• GBH: Grievous Bodily Harm
  Grievous bodily harm
  Grievous bodily harm is a term of art used in English criminal law which has become synonymous with the offences that are created by sections 18 and 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861....
  
  
• Skell: Unsavoury character
  Skell
  Skell, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to a person who is homeless, vagrant or derelict. It is often used to connote such a person who is habitually engaged in small-time criminal activity, especially by one working as a con artist or panhandler.-History:In its modern form, the...
  
  
• TDA: Taking and Driving Away
  TDA
  TDA is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:* Taking and Driving Away, a former criminal offense under UK law, introduced in S.28 Road Traffic Act 1930, repeated in s.217 of the Road Traffic Act 1960, and with amendments became s.175 Road Traffic Act 1972 and s.178 Road Traffic Act 1988...
  
  
• TWOC: Taken Without Owner's Consent
  TWOC
  TWOC is an acronym standing for Taking Without Owner's Consent. Synonyms used by police in the UK include UTMV: Unlawful Taking of a Motor Vehicle, and TADA or TDA: Taking and Driving Away...
  
  

Miscellaneous initialisms

• ARV: Armed Response Vehicle
  Armed Response Vehicle
  An armed response vehicle is a type of police car operated by the British police. ARVs are crewed by Authorised Firearms Officers to respond to emergency telephone calls believed to involve firearms or other high-risk situations...
  
  
• TFU: Tactical Firearms Unit
• NFA: No Further Action
• SOCO: Scenes Of Crime Officer
  Scenes of Crime Officer
  A Scenes of Crime Officer is an officer who gathers forensic evidence for the British police. They are also referred to by some forces as Forensic Scene Investigators , Crime Scene Investigators , or Crime Scene Examiners...
  
  ; a forensic crime scene examiner
• VSS: Victim Support Scheme
  Victim Support
  Victim Support is a charity in England and Wales which aims to help victims and witnesses of crime by raising awareness of their needs and by delivering dedicated services to them. It was established in 1974. It is a national charity with branches in every community and each criminal court in...
  
  
• VDRS: Vehicle Defects Rectification Scheme

Miscellaneous acronyms

• CO19: Central Operations Specialist Firearms Command
  Specialist Firearms Command
  Central Operations Specialist Firearms Command is a Central Operations branch within Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Command is responsible for providing a firearms-response capability, assisting the rest of the service, which is normally unarmed...
  
  
• HOLMES: Home Office Large and Major Enquiry System
  HOLMES2
  HOLMES 2 is an Information Technology system that is predominantly used by UK Police forces for the investigation of major incidents such as serial murders and multi-million pound frauds....
  
  ; a computer system for major incidents
• PACE: Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
  Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is an Act of Parliament which instituted a legislative framework for the powers of police officers in England and Wales to combat crime, as well as providing codes of practice for the exercise of those powers. Part VI of PACE required the Home Secretary...
  
  ; Act of parliament providing a core framework of police powers and safeguards around stop and search, arrest, detention, investigation, identification and interviewing detainees
• PCSO: Police Community Support Officer
  Police community support officer
  A police community support officer , or community support officer is a uniformed non-warranted officer employed by a territorial police force or the British Transport Police in England and Wales. Police community support officers were introduced in September 2002 by the Police Reform Act 2002...
  
  ; A civilian uniformed non-warranted officer
• PNC: Police National Computer
  Police National Computer
  The Police National Computer is a computer system used extensively by law enforcement organisations across the United Kingdom. It went live in 1974 and now consists of several databases available 24 hours a day, giving access to information of national and local significance.From October 2009, the...
  
  
• NSPIS: National Strategy for Police Information Systems; a computer system for the management of police resources

Miscellaneous abbreviations

• MISPER: Missing person
  Missing person
  A missing person is a person who has disappeared for usually unknown reasons.Missing persons' photographs may be posted on bulletin boards, milk cartons, postcards, and websites, along with a phone number to be contacted if a sighting has been made....
  
  
• WOFF: Write off; a vehicle or other property deemed a total loss for insurance purposes
• WINQ: Warrant inquiry
• Code 99: Tea break, "99" is a brand of Co-op tea

Numerical and alphanumerical codes

The ten-code

Ten-code

Ten-codes, also known as ten signals, are code words used to represent common phrases in voice communication, particularly by law enforcement and in Citizens' Band radio transmissions....

s are used only for voice communications, usually radio transmissions and denote commonly used phrases; for example 10-16 means domestic disturbance for some agencies. Use of ten-codes is intended for the clear, quick, and concise communication between law enforcement officers.

The response codes

Code 3 Response

The emergency services in various countries use systems of response codes to categorize their responses to reported events. One of the best known is the Code 3 Response, which is used in several countries, particularly the United States, to describe a mode of response for an emergency vehicle...

 consist of the word "Code" followed by a number; for example "Code 3" means lights and sirens.

Number

Number

A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....

s and alphanumeric

Alphanumeric

Alphanumeric is a combination of alphabetic and numeric characters, and is used to describe the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits or a text constructed from this collection. There are either 36 or 62 alphanumeric characters. The alphanumeric character set consists of the numbers 0 to...

 combinations referring to offenses

Offense (law)

In law, an offence is a violation of the criminal law .In England and Wales, as well as in Hong Kong the term "offence" means the same thing as, and is interchangeable with, the term "crime"....

 and actions covered by legal code

Legal code

A legal code is a body of law written by a governmental body, such as a U.S. state, a Canadian Province or German Bundesland or a municipality...

s are often used both as noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

s and
verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

s in both spoken and written communication. Since each state has its own system of law, this usage varies widely by state. For example in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, if a suspect is 849B'd, it means they are released from custody after being arrest

Arrest

An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed (instead of being booked

Booking

Booking may refer to:* Booking , a Korean comics anthology magazine published by Haksan* Booking , the laying out of the plot before a professional wrestling match* An accounting system a.k.a...

 into county jail) and refers to section 849(b) of the California Penal Code

California Penal Code

The Penal Code of California forms the basis for the application of criminal law in the American state of California. It was originally enacted in 1872 as one of the original four California Codes, and has been substantially amended and revised since then....

.

Subject description initialisms

Three letter abbreviations are commonly used to describe subjects mentioned in incident reports. The first letter denotes apparent race/ethnicity; the most commonly used letters are: A—Asian

Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...

, B—Black, H—Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

, O—Other

Other

The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...

, W—White. The letters PI are occasionally used to denote Pacific Islander

Pacific Islander

Pacific Islander , is a geographic term to describe the indigenous inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:Polynesia:...

 resulting in a four letter abbreviation http://www.menloparkpolice.org/mppdlog/glossary.html. The second letter denotes gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

: F—Female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

, M—Male

Male

Male refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...

. The final letter denotes whether the subject is legally an adult: A—Adult

Adult

An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....

, J—Juvenile. Thus the initialism WFJ (or wfj) appearing after a subjects name in a police log would denote a white female juvenile.

Code violations

• ADW: Assault with a Deadly Weapon
• DIP: Drunk In Public
• HS: Health and Safety Code
• PC: Penal Code
• VC: Vehicle Code
• WI: Welfare & Institutions Code
• Fel.: Felony
  Felony
  A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
  
  
• Misd.: Misdemeanor
  Misdemeanor
  A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
  
  
• Inf.: Infraction

Initialisms describing situations

• ATL: Attempt To Locate
• BOLO: Be On Lookout
• DB: Dead Body
• DID: Drunk In a Ditch
• DOA: Dead On Arrival
• EDP: Emotionally Disturbed Person
• GOA: Gone On Arrival
• IFO: In Front Of
• LKA: Last Known Address
• LNU: Last Name Unknown
• QOA: Quiet On Arrival
• UTL: Unable To Locate

Miscellaneous abbreviations and descriptive terms

• Adam Henry (AH): Ignorant individual slang [see HUA]
• APB: All Points Bulletin
  All points bulletin
  An all-points bulletin is a broadcast issued from one US law enforcement agency to another. It typically contains information about a wanted suspect who is to be arrested or a person of interest, for whom law enforcement officers are to look. They are usually dangerous or missing persons. As...
  
  
• APC: All Points County
• BOLO: Similar to and APB, Be On The Look Out (for)
• CJ: County Jail
• CIVIES: term describing non uniform clothing used in undercover operations
• COMPSTAT: method of tracking criminal activity and subsequent enforcement
• CONDITION: problem or concern in need of police attention
• DA: District Attorney
  District attorney
  In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
  
  
• DV: Domestic Violence
  Domestic violence
  Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
  
  
• DOB: Date Of Birth
• EC: Emergency Contact
• FD: Fire Department
• FTO: Field Training Officer
• GATT: Illegal firearm
• GOA: Gone On Arrival
• HBO: Handled By Officer
• HOUSE MOUSE: A police officer who seldom leaves the police station
• HUA: Ignorant slang [see AH or "Adam Henry"]
• LUD
  LUD
  LUD is a detailed record of local calls made and received from a particular phone number. These records are regularly available to police in the United States with a court order, and were traditionally subject to the same restrictions as telephone tapping.LUDs may be legally used by the police...
  
  S: Local Usage Details. A detailed record of calls made and received from a particular phone number.
• MUTT: An extremely unsavory character
• NAT: Necessary Action Taken
• NORP: Normal, Ordinary, Responsible Person
• OLN: Operator's License Number
• PA: Prosecuting Attorney
• PC: Probable Cause (Reasonable Suspicion - for arrest or stop)
• PD: Police Department
• PUKE: A pejorative
  Pejorative
  Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
  
   for an inmate of the county jail or state prison
• RO: Registered Owner
• RP: Reporting Person/Party
• SA: State's Attorney
  State's Attorney
  In the United States, the State's Attorney is, most commonly, an elected official who represents the State in criminal prosecutions and is often the chief law enforcement officer of their respective county, circuit...
  
  
• SKELL: Unsavory character (term often used by NY Police Officers)
• SKELL GEL: Anti bacterial lotion used by Officers after contact with skell(s)
• SNEU: Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit
• SO: Sheriff's Office
  Sheriff
  A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
  
  
• SOC: Social Security Number
• SOR: Sex Offender Registration/Registrant
• SRO: School Resource Officer
• UTL: Unable To Locate
• WOOD SHAMPOO: Using less than lethal force to gain voluntary compliance

Miscellaneous acronyms

• AFIS: Automated fingerprint identification system
  Automated Fingerprint Identification System
  Automated fingerprint identification is the process of automatically matching one or many unknown fingerprints against a database of known and unknown prints...
  
  
• CODIS: Combined DNA Index System
  Combined DNA Index System
  The Combined DNA Index System is a DNA database funded by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation . It is a computer system that stores DNA profiles created by federal, state, and local crime laboratories in the United States, with the ability to search the database to assist in the...
  
  
• IAFIS: Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
  Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
  The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System is a national automated fingerprint identification and criminal history system maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation . IAFIS provides automated fingerprint search capabilities, latent searching capability, electronic image...
  
  
• NCIC: National Crime Information Center
  National Crime Information Center
  The National Crime Information Center is the United States' central database for tracking crime-related information. Since 1967, the NCIC has been maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, and is interlinked with similar systems that each...
  
  
• SWAT
  SWAT
  A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
  
  : A police department's elite special weapons and tactics unit
• VIN: Vehicle Identification Number
  Vehicle identification number
  A Vehicle Identification Number, commonly abbreviated to VIN, is a unique serial number used by the automotive industry to identify individual motor vehicles. VINs were first used in 1954...
  
  

Miscellaneous abbreviations

• BKD: Booked (into county jail)
• BLK: Street block
  City block
  A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
  
  
• BTWN: Between
• BUS: Ambulance
• COMPL: Complaintant
• DESC: Description
• JUV: Juvenile
• MOD: Model (of vehicle, for example)
• M/N: Model Number (of article, for example)
• PROP: Property
• PERP: Perpetrator
• REG: Vehicle registration
  Vehicle registration plate
  A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies the vehicle within the issuing region's database...
  
  
• RELD/RLSD: Released
• RPTS: Reports (verb)
• SER: Serial number
  Serial number
  A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
  
  
• S/N: Serial number
  Serial number
  A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
  
  
• S/H: Stationhouse
• SUSP: Suspect
  Suspect
  In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a known person suspected of committing a crime.Police and reporters often incorrectly use the word suspect when referring to the...
  
  
• S/V: Suspect
  Suspect
  In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a known person suspected of committing a crime.Police and reporters often incorrectly use the word suspect when referring to the...
  
   Vehicle
• TKN: Taken
• TANGO: Thank You
• UNK: Unknown
• UTL: Unable To Locate
• VEH: Vehicle
• VIC: Victim
• V/C: Victim / Complainant
• WARR: Warrant

Popular culture

Law enforcement jargon is heavily used in police procedural

Police procedural

The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...

s and similar violent shows. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...

, a television series about forensic scientists, uses many acronyms such as AFIS, CODIS and DB.

The numeric code 187

187 (murder)

187 is a slang term for the crime of murder; it refers to Section 187 of the California Penal Code, which defines the crime of murder. The number is commonly pronounced by reading the digits separately as "one-eight-seven", or "one-eighty-seven", rather than "one hundred eighty-seven".The number...

 from the California Penal Code section dealing with murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

 has been featured in numerous gangsta rap

Gangsta rap

Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...

 songs such as Deep Cover

Deep Cover (song)

"Deep Cover", also known as "187", is Dr. Dre's debut solo single, his first song since the N.W.A. break up. It was made for the soundtrack from the film Deep Cover . The song features Snoop Dogg making his first appearance on record.-History:...

 and as the title of the movie One Eight Seven

One Eight Seven

Music from the Motion Picture 187 is the soundtrack to the 1997 film, One Eight Seven. It was released on July 29, 1997 through Atlantic Records and unlike films like Dangerous Minds and The Substitute that dealt with similar subject matter, this soundtrack did not receive an Urban music...

.

External links

• Killeen Police Jargon Page (the local police department in Killeen, Texas
  Killeen, Texas
  Killeen is a city in Bell County, Texas, The United States. The population was 86,911 at the 2000 census. As of 2009, Killeen had 119,510 people. In 2010 Killeen's population shot to 127,921...
  
  )
• North Yorkshire Police Jargon Buster (the Police Force
  North Yorkshire Police
  North Yorkshire Police is the territorial police force covering the non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire and the unitary authority of York in northern England. The force covers England's largest county and comprises three area command units...
  
   in North Yorkshire
  North Yorkshire
  North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
  
  , England
  England
  England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
  
  )
• Menlo Park Police Daily Log Glossary (PDF format) (the local police department in Menlo Park, California
  Menlo Park, California
  Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
  
  )
• Staffordshire Police Jargon Buster (the Police Force
  Staffordshire Police
  Staffordshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent in the West Midlands of England...
  
   in Staffordshire
  Staffordshire
  Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
  
  , England)
• UK Police Slang and Acronyms (a large and growing list of police slang submitted by Police forum members.)
• Legal Jargon Glossary (a large list of legal terms and jargon used by Attorneys.
• )