The Law: Prison Patois

To set themselves apart from the “straight” world that incarcerated them, prisoners have developed an argot that few outside of jail could hope to understand. Thus, for new volunteers who work with prisoners, the New York State Department of Correctional Services recently compiled a pamphlet that included half a dozen pages of current “inmate jargon.” A sampling of some of the more colorful terms:

Bug juice: medicine

Cop a mope: get away from me

Ding him: swing sneakily at him

Doing a pound: serving a five-year sentence

Feeb: low on the inmate social scale

Flat bit: definite sentence (a “split bit” is a sentence with a set minimum and maximum)

Godfather: prison superintendent

Habe: writ of habeas corpus

Hit: rejection for parole

Home boy or homie: from same home town

Ice short ice: movies with lots of sex

Jacket: to label someone

Jailhouse punk: made a homosexual in prison

Jitterbug: young gang fighter

Jockers: aggressive homosexuals

Jones: habit

Main squeeze: wife, girl friend

Max out: complete maximum sentence

Mother’s Day: day when welfare check arrives at inmate’s home

Play chickee: to be a lookout

On tape: to know by heart

On the erie: eavesdropping

Rollies: handmade cigarettes

Skinners: plastic surgery

Tip: to leave

Yam: a black (derogatory)

Zex: careful, someone’s coming

Many of those terms will soon be outdated, of course, if they are not already. The very existence of the pamphlet threatens them. If every volunteer understands what convicts are saying, the inmate neologist will simply invent new jargon to remain different from the straights. For some prisoners, that’s a number one Jones they do not want to kick.