The Criminal Alphabet (23 page)

This is rhyming slang (Jack the Rippers =
slippers), and is used particularly for prison-issue slippers. Anyone who wears
Jack the Rippers
in prison is considered to be institutionalized and no longer aware of the dangers that may be lurking. If something kicks off, such prisoners will be at a severe disadvantage. Veteran cons will always be wearing footwear they can run or fight in at a moment's notice, and these do not include slippers or flip-flops. The atmosphere in prison can change from one moment to the next, and riots, fights and unrest can come apparently out of nowhere. Jack the Ripper was a notorious serial killer in 1888 who killed at least five women in the East End of London. His identity has never been discovered.

See
Adidas sex-case
,
Baccy tins
,
Fila c***s
,
Nigerian Nikes

A
jailhouse brief
is much the same as a barrack-room lawyer – a prisoner or soldier with knowledge of the law and of rules and regulations who will dispense advice on these matters to his fellows. Some jailhouse briefs make a good career for themselves behind bars by charging a fee to other prisoners who may wish to sue the authorities. For this fee the jailhouse brief will handle all the paperwork, fill in the court forms and negotiate settlements with the Treasury Solicitors. The most common cases handled are for lost or damaged property or personal injury, in which cases the brief will usually settle for a small percentage of any compensation won by the claimant in payment for their services. There are also jailhouse briefs who will put their legal knowledge to use in order to effect change in prison rules and law. For these, the reward is in the satisfaction of effecting change.

Jail mail
is mail received from other people in prison. Many prisoners write to each other when they have been transferred between jails. Also, many prisoners of the opposite sex correspond with each other from their respective jails.

Jam roll
is rhyming slang for parole. In UK prisons parole is given to long-term prisoners and those sentenced to life after they have served the bulk of their sentence or tariff period. In the case of lifers, parole is not an automatic right and they must be vigorously risk-assessed and passed
for parole by a Parole Board,
which includes a judge, and then be passed by the Home Secretary. Prisoners serving life sentences are on Parole for the rest of their natural lives and can be recalled to prison at any time for breaching the conditions of their licence. Those prisoners with determinate sentences receive parole automatically at the halfway point of their sentence and remain on licence until their sentence expires. They, too, can be recalled to prison for any breach of their licence.

A
joey
is a parcel,
usually of drugs, and is so called because it is secreted on the prisoner's body,
rather like a joey (baby kangaroo) in its mother's pouch. Prisoners are expert at hiding things, especially drugs or weapons, about their person. One prison legend involves a particularly violent lifer who had a penchant for cutting screws and even governors by producing concealed razor blades at opportune moments, despite having been thoroughly searched every time. Rumour had it that he would make cuts in his flesh, and them cover them with salt until the flesh took on the consistency of a flesh ‘pocket', into which he would slip the razor blade. The screws took to stripping him naked and searching all his clothes on a regular basis, yet still he was able to pop up with a blade whenever he felt like it.

John Wayne
is prison-issue toilet paper, because it is so very tough, just like the cowboys played by the actor. Up until the first few years of the twenty-first century, prison-issue toilet paper was like tracing paper, all shiny and not fit for purpose. The daily issue for each prisoner is six sheets (not rolls, sheets!) and, in some prisons,
that is all you'll get. In recent years HMP have switched to recycled paper, which,
while not as rough as the original toilet paper, is barely fit for purpose either.
If it's cheap, HMP will buy it, no matter how useless.

A
kamikaze mission
is exactly what it sounds like. Named after the Japanese kamikaze pilots of the Second World War, who would fly their planes into targets knowing they would die in the process, criminal and prison kamikaze missions can sometimes be as fatal, but not often. In criminal parlance, it's a piece of work or action that will involve plenty of front and bottle but has a good chance of crashing and getting whoever does it hurt. It means going up against heavy odds, with at least a fifty-fifty chance of failure. In prison, a typical kamikaze mission might involve a prisoner ‘rushing'
the screws, even though the prisoner will be greatly outnumbered, or fronting up to a drug gang to whom they already owe a bundle of wonga and conning more drugs out of them when the prisoner has no means or intention of paying for them. Some prison escape attempts are kamikaze missions, with little hope of success.

This is yet another (rhyming) slang word for a prison officer (kangaroo = screw).
Kanga
is of course the shortened version of the word and is widely used in every prison in the country by
cons
.

A
kangaroo court
is an unofficial, generally farcical, hearing held to determine the guilt (or, rarely,
otherwise) of an offender. Most prisoners refer to governors'
adjudications
as kangaroo courts because, no matter what they say or what evidence they produce, the governor will inevitably find them guilty on the word of the staff alone. Some prisoners set up their own kangaroo courts in order to deal with fellow prisoners who they believe have offended against the prisoners' code, by, for example, stealing from another prisoner's cell, or
grassing
. The punishments meted out by prisoners are usually violent.

See
Pad Thief

A
kiddy fiddler
is anyone who is in prison for sexual crimes against children. They are normally housed on the protection wings, away from the violent wrath of any ODCs (Ordinary Decent Criminals), who will severely serve them up if they get their hands on them. Kiddy fiddlers are hated and despised even by other prisoners on the protection wings.

Kiddy killer
describes anyone who has killed a child. These prisoners are held in contempt by the rest of the prison population and in severe danger of being violently assaulted for their crimes.

Kit
is any item issued to a prisoner by the prison authorities. Blankets and sheets are bed kit; shorts,
singlet and plimsolls are PE kit; and all other prison clothing is general kit.
Every prison has a weekly kit change, when prisoners can exchange items for clean or undamaged ones. In the days of
borstal
and
DC
, kit inspections, in which each trainee had to lay out every item of kit in a specified manner, were common for young offenders, and there was also a punishment called kit change, in which screws would order young prisoners to put on each item of a set of kit, rapidly, and then another. So a screw would stand at the top of a dorm or wing and shout, ‘PE kit,
go
!' and every trainee had to quickly don their PE kit.
Once they were all in the PE kit, the screw would shout, ‘Best dress,
go
!'
and it would be all change again. These punishments could go on for hours and were often given out for trivial infractions of the rules, such as talking after lights out.

Kit bags
are still issued in some prisons and in all
HMYOI
s. They are usually cloth or net bags in which prisoners carry their
kit
when moving cells, or when replacing it weekly with clean kit.

A
kit number
is the numerical code issued to prisoners and YOs and is stamped on every piece of kit issued to that prisoner. This number means that all pieces of kit can be traced to each individual so that they can be held liable under prison rules for any loss or damage.

The word
knockback
is well known and well used by life-sentenced and indeterminately sentenced prisoners.
In order to be released, every lifer and indeterminate must appear before the Parole Board and prove they are no longer a risk to the public. Being refused parole is known as a knockback or KB. The knockback can be a big blow for any prisoner who has spent years in the system. It means they will have to reapply for parole further down the line. The average knockback a lifer may receive is two years, though it's not unknown for lifers to receive a seven-year knockback. It's almost impossible for a prisoner to prove that they no longer constitute a risk to the public, so they see parole hearings as something of a lottery. As soon as a paroled lifer hits the headlines for committing a further offence, those lifers left in prison know that they'll have to suffer a few more years of knockbacks as the Parole Board get spooked and stop releasing lifers for fear of being targeted by the tabloids.
Welcome to ‘justice' in the UK!

A prison sentence of two years is known as a
lagging
. I was once told that it was because two years and over turned
you into an old
lag
, an experienced convict who knows all the dodges.

See
Lag boat

If someone suggests that your
deps
may have
laminated pages
, then you are facing a serious accusation that you are a ‘wrong un'. It's widely believed in prison that police informers and sex offenders who refuse to go on the
cucumbers
are given a fake set of depositions which claim that they are in for some ‘honourable' crime like GBH or assaulting the police. Using the phrase is an insinuation that the authorities have supplied a prisoner with a fake passport to
the mains
that has been used so many times they've had to laminate the pages to save on wear and tear.

See
Cucumbers
,
Deps
,
The Mains
,
Paperwork

The use of anti-psychotic medication in British prisons has long been widespread and Largactil, or Thorazine, as it is known in the US, is a favourite. Also known as ‘the liquid cosh', it is sometimes injected into prisoners who refuse to conform and, certainly up until the 1980s, was used as a tranquillizer. I was injected with it against my will when I was a juvenile prisoner in the 1970s. Once it gets into your system, it slows down your movements,
walking in particular. The drug causes you to shuffle along like a zombie, taking very short steps, as there is a dull ache in your limbs that is only relieved if you keep moving. In the 1970s and '80s it was common to see
exercise yards
full of prisoners doing the
Largactil shuffle
.

A slang phrase for cigarette ends, the term
little fellas
is widely used in northern prisons, as in
‘Blimey, I'm dying for a smoke, you got any little fellas?'.

See
Mud Huts
,
Swooper

In the straight world your
local
is probably the nearest pub, but in the criminal world it usually refers to the
local prison
. When first arrested and remanded to custody, or on first conviction, a prisoner is sent to the prison nearest the court where they have been tried, and this prison is known as a local. Most big cities will have more than one local prison. For example, if you were remanded from a court in Liverpool you might be sent to HMP Walton or HMP Altcourse (also known as Fazakerley). If you are arrested in South London, you may be sent to HMP Brixton, HMP Belmarsh or HMP Wandsworth. All local prisons are Category B, though some can also hold Category A prisoners on special secure wings.

In prison, getting your
L plates
means getting a life sentence.

The
Magical Mystery Tour
is what a prisoner is sent on if they cause serious trouble in prison. Whether they have incited a riot, assaulted a screw or are suspected of plotting subversive activities, they will be beaten,
double-cuffed
and thrown into a prison transport with an escort of screws and sent around the country. The prisoner will spend some time in a number of prison punishment blocks and be moved at a moment's notice, day or night. Like the ‘ghost train', this punishment is designed to disorientate disruptive prisoners, as they aren't left in any prison long enough to settle. It also makes it very difficult for them to keep in touch with family or any legal representative who may be able to make representations to stop the tour.