Law Enforcement Jargon Article Index for
Law Enforcement
Website Links For
Law Enforcement
 

Information About

Law Enforcement Jargon




Abbreviation s, Code s 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



Initialisms describing situations

  • ASNT - Area Searched No Trace

  • MFH - Missing From Home

  • NAI - Non-Accidental Injury



Miscellaneous initialisms



Miscellaneous acronyms



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-code s are used only for voice communications, usually
Radio Transmission s and denote commonly used phrases; for example
10-16 means ''domestic disturbance''.

Number s and Alphanumeric combinations referring to Offences and actions
covered by Legal Code s are often used both as Noun s and
Verb 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 , if a suspect is 849B'd, it means they are
released from custody after being Arrest ed (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 , 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



Initialisms describing situations

  • GOA - Gone On Arrival

  • QOA - Quiet On Arrival

  • UTL - Unable To Locate



Miscellaneous initialisms



Miscellaneous acronyms



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