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Law enforcement jargon refers to a large body of acronyms, abbreviations, codes and slang 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 speaking countries are considered.
United Kingdom
Offences
- ABH - Actual Bodily Harm
- GBH - Grievous Bodily Harm
- TDA - Taken and Driven Away
- TWOC - Taken Without Owner's Consent
Initialisms describing situations
- ASNT - Area Searched No Trace
- MFH - Missing From Home
- NAI - Non-Accidental Injury
Miscellaneous initialisms
- NFA - No Further Action
- VSS - Victim Support Scheme
Miscellaneous acronyms
- HOLMES - Home Office Large and Major Enquiry System; a computer system for major incidents
Miscellaneous abbreviations
- MISPER - Missing person
- WOFF - Write off; a vehicle or other property deemed a total loss for insurance purposes
United States
Numerical and alphanumerical codes
The ten-codes are used only for voice communications, usually radio transmissions and denote commonly used phrases; for example 10-16 means domestic disturbance. Use of ten-codes is becoming somewhat obsolescent within most departments. The trend is toward "clear" (uncoded) radio communication.Numbers and alphanumeric combinations referring to offences and actions covered by legal codes are often used both as nouns and verbs 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, if a suspect is 849B'd, it means they are released from custody after being arrested (instead of being booked into county jail) and refers to section 849(b) of the California Penal Code.
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, B - Black, H - Hispanic, O - Oriental, W - White. The letters PI are occasionally used to denote Pacific Islander resulting in a four letter abbreviation *. The second letter denotes gender: F - Female, M - Male. The final letter denotes whether the subject is legally an adult: A - Adult, 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
- HS - Health and Safety Code
- PC - Penal Code
- VC - Vehicle Code
- WI - Welfare & Institutions Code
- Fel. - Felony
- Misd. - Misdemeanor
- Inf. - Infraction
Initialisms describing situations
- GOA - Gone On Arrival
- QOA - Quiet On Arrival
- DOA - Dead On Arrival
- UTL - Unable To Locate
- MIA - Missing In Action
Miscellaneous initialisms
- APB - All Points Bulletin
- APC - All Points County
- CJ - County Jail
- DA - District Attorney
- DOB - Date Of Birth
- PD - Police Department
- RP - Reporting Person/Party
- SO - Sheriff's Office
Miscellaneous acronyms
- AFIS - Automated Fingerprint Identification System
- CODIS - Combined DNA Index System
- IAFIS - Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System
- VIN - Vehicle Identification Number
Miscellaneous abbreviations
- BKD - Booked (into county jail)
- BLK - Street block
- BTWN - Between
- DESC - Description
- JUV - Juvenile
- MOD - Model (of vehicle, for example)
- PROP - Property
- REG - Vehicle registration
- RELD/RLSD - Released
- RPTS - Reports (verb)
- SER - Serial number
- SUSP - Suspect
- TKN - Taken
- UNK - Unknown
- VEH - Vehicle
- VIC - Victim
External links
- Police Jargon: How to Talk Like a Cop (a guide by Lynda Sue Cooper)
- Killeen Police Jargon Page (the local police department in Killeen, Texas)
- North Yorkshire Police Jargon Buster (the Police Force in North Yorkshire, England)
- Menlo Park Police Daily Log Glossary (PDF format) (the local police department in Menlo Park, California)
- Staffordshire Police Jargon Buster (the Police Force in Staffordshire, England)
- UK Police Slang and Acronyms (a large and growing list of Police Slang submitted by Police forum members.)
"Law enforcement jargon"