Can you translate this?
Ihave the keysfor myCarbut myRoad Dogsare disappearing on me. One was5150andDid the Dutch,oneleft onBack Door Parole, one is aBB Filleron his way out. Twoare inThe Hole (one forKeisteringa cell phone), one is jackedup onBrake Fluid(he’s gotL Whop), one’s aJ-Catsent to theDing Wing,one is aDump Truck who caught theNinja,one was picked up by aMeat Wagonafter gettingMolly whooped.The only one left is aFishwho’s obsessed with a Kitty-Kitty. And me.
Translation at the end of Glossary!
DON’T MISS:235 Prison Slang Words You Can Learn Now
All Day: A life sentence
All Day and a Night: Life without parole
Ate up each other: Two sentences running concurrently. When a 10-year sentence and a seven-year sentence run concurrently, the 10-year sentence “ate up” the seven-year sentence.
Back door parole: To die in prison
Bats: Cigarettes
Bean Slot: The opening in the cell door where food is delivered.
BB Filler: Body Bag Filler; usually a very ill prisoner.
Bid: Prison sentence
Big Bitch: Death Sentence
Bindle: A small package containing tobacco or drugs
Blues: Prison Clothes
Bonaru: Brand new prison clothes
Boneyard visit: Conjugal visit without kids
Brake Fluid: Psychiatric meds
Brogan: The state-issued work boots that inmates wear.
Brownies: People who work in the kitchen
Bucky or Celly: Cellmate
Buffing: Working out on the exercise bars with water, sandbags, and calisthenics
Bug: A prison staff member who can’t be trusted.
Bullet: A one-year sentence
Don’t Miss: Remember Amy Preasmyer? She Writes Us From Solitary
Burner: Cell phone
Burpee: An exercise involving a squat, a pushup and leg lifts
Cadillac: Coffee with cream and sugar; Also refers to an inmate’s bunk.
Cadillac Job: A desirable work assignment.
Cage: Your cell, aka Hole in the Wall, House, Buck
Car: The group that one associates with while in prison (determined by gang affiliation or some other commonality like age, race, sexual identity, etc.)
Catch the cut: What inmates say to one another when they want to fight each other, preferably in a blind spot where it’s right out of sight from the camera
Catch the wall: What prison staff say when they rush in for a “shakedown” (i.e., hands against the wall and spread your legs)
Catch a Ride: To get high with a friend’s drugs
Caught letters: A life sentence (L.I.F.E.)
Cell Warrior: An inmate who acts tough when locked in his cell, but is a coward face-to-face.
Catching the Chain: When an inmate is leaving
Chatted Out: Someone who has gone crazy
Choke Sandwich: A peanut butter sandwich with no jelly
Chow: Dinner
C.O.: A correctional officer
Cowboy: A new correctional officer.
DON’T MISS OUR OTHER LIST! 235 Prison Slang Words You Can Learn Now
Dime: 10-year sentence
Ding-wing: A prison’s psychiatric unit.
Dinner and a Show: While inmates eat glop in the chowhall (the Dinner), they watch other inmates fight and then get pepper sprayed by the guards (the Show).
Doing the Dutch: Committing suicide
Draft: Charging another inmate to live there (extortion)
Dry Snitching: Ratting out another inmate by talking loudly about his bad behavior in front of guards. Giving information without naming names.
Duck: A correctional officer who’s seen as gullible, easily manipulated or bribed to smuggle in contraband. Also refers to a correctional official who reveals personal information about other prison staff to inmates. Sometimes refers to a doctor.
Dump Truck: Fat, lazy slob
FamBam: A conjugal visit with children — vs the child-free “Boneyard” conjugal visit
Fiend: A drug addict
Fish: A new inmate who’s never been in prison before
5150: Crazy
Fresh meat: A batch of new inmates
Gangsta: An inmate with AIDS (i.e., someone who will “die slow”)
Get Hit: To catch a longer sentence from the parole board
Getting Buzzed: Getting tattooed
Grapes: 411, information, gossip
Green Light: The go-ahead to kill a person or gang affiliate on sight.
Gunline: What inmates shout out to let other inmates know that they’re masturbating and requesting to NOT be disturbed
Has the Keys: The person who controls or calls the shots for a group or gang
Hoe Check: Group beating given to prisoner to see if he’ll stand up for himself.
Hole, (the): Solitary confinement
Hoop: To hide contraband in one’s body cavity
Hot Medders: People who take over-the-counter medication
Hot One: A murder charge
Hot Water: An officer is walking the tier; a warning to cease inappropriate behavior
House: Your cell
Hug-A-Thug: A corrections officer who treats prisoners with respect, which is seen as a sign of weakness to other COs.
Ten Tips for Surviving Long Term Solitary
J-Cat: Someone with mental issues. A crazy or foolish person
Jody: A man sleeping with a prisoner’s wife/girlfriend on the outside
Jose or josing: To help someone pass the time. When someone from the outside is writing letters, sending pictures, putting money on inmates’ books, adding money for phone time, or coming to visit said inmate, they are a jose.
June bug: A prisoner considered to be a slave to others
Juvenile-in-training (J.I.T.): A younger person who acts like a punk. Causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble. Has become a popular slang term used in the deep south even outside the walls. (HT to Mara!)
Kite: A contraband note written on a small piece of paper and passed to others through underground methods.
Keister: To hide contraband in one’s rectum.
Kesue: Knife
Kitty Kitty: Female correctional officer
Lame Duck: A vulnerable inmate standing alone in the prison yard, easy to prey on
Life Jolt: A life sentence
L Whop: Life without the possibility of parole
Lockdown: When some kind of disturbance in prison causes guards to lock all inmates in their cells, indefinitely, until calm is restored. Often involves a “shakedown.”
Lock-in-a-sock: A weapon created from putting a combination lock inside a sock and swinging it
Mando: Mandatory
Meat Wagon: A hospital ambulance
Mojiggetty: Mojo (synthetic marijuana)
Moley (moo-lee): Jailhouse-made dessert
Molly Whopped: To kick someone’s ass in a fight or to get your ass kicked in a fight
Money on books: An inmate’s account that pays for commissary
Monkey Mouth: A prisoner who goes on and on about nothing
Monster: HIV, aka “the Ninja”
Mud: Coffee
Mudd: An inmate’s ass
Netted up: Someone who goes crazy
New booties: Inmates with first-time conviction
Newjacks: New, inexperienced COs
Nickel: 5-year sentence
Ninja, (The): HIV/AIDS; sometimes used for STDs in general
Don’t Miss “SEX in Prisons”
115: The document used to charge a prisoner with an infraction
On the line: Has many meanings, but usually means something is for sale
O.G.: An “original gangster;” a label of respect given to older inmates who has been in the prison system a long time.
P.C.: Protective custody; a category of solitary confinement where the inmate needs protection from other inmates.
Permanent Pocket: Refers to a person’s anus
Playing on Ass: Gambling without money
Porcelain Termite: A prisoner who busts up the toilet/sink in cell when s/he gets upset
Prison Pocket: Refers to a person’s anus (and sometimes, vagin*)
Prison Safe: The safest place to keep drugs, shanks, dice, etc. during cell inspections and transfers: see Prison Pocket.
Prison Wolf: A heterosexual prisoner who engages in sex with men while incarcerated.
Programmer: An inmate who spends most of his time attending classes and improving himself: the nerds of prison
Pruno: A homemade alcohol made from fruit, bread and anything with sugar, i.e. jelly, cookie cream, sodas, tootsie rolls, etc. and left to rot under a bunk for three days. No one drinks it for the taste…
Pumpkins: New inmates
Punk: Derogatory for a transsexual / hom*osexual OR any weak individual
Race Traitor: Someone who socializes outside their race group
Ratched: A Nurse
Real Talk: Synonym for “seriously” or “for real” — used to let others know that you are talking honestly and sincerely and that what you are expressing is not a joke. Also used to affirm what others are saying is true.
Rec: Recreation; the hour a day allowed outside in the yard.
Ride Leg: To suck up to staff to get favors
Road Dog: Prisoners who walk the track together during “rec”; also means close friends
Roll up your window: A request to stop eavesdropping on another inmate’s conversation, especially do not comment on the conversation uninvited
Running epps: When inmates tell each other stories from when they were free
Running wild: When an inmate receives two or more consecutive sentences
S to Life: A basketball game without rules
Sancho: The person your wife/girlfriend is with on the outside
Sex Play: To verbally or physically communicate in a sexual manner
Shakedown: When prison guards tear apart inmates’ cells looking for contraband.
sh*t on a single: A breakfast meal that has fake ground beef with watered down gravy
Shiv: Homemade Knife
S.I.S.: Special Investigative Service, the CIA of prison guards who investigate incidents in prison.
Skittles: Over the counter medications
Spider Monkey: Someone doing hard time
Spread: Gourmet prison meal; often used to describe big potluck meals put together for a group of inmates by a designated cook or two; Includes rice, ramen soups, fish, chili, tortilla chips etc
Strapped: When someone is carrying a weapon
Stress Box: The pay phone booths
Stingers: A rigged heating element created out of metal, designed to get water to boil.
Inmates will connect two wires from any source, TV plugs headphones or even handmade wire from aluminum foil to any 2 separated metal objects, usually metal-plates. By connecting the two wires to the outlet and dropping the stinger in the water the AC current will pass through the water heating it up.
Sucker Ducker: Someone who stays away from people who cause trouble
Survival Kit: A pillow case or sheet rolled up with a sheet, blanket, pillow case, 2 pairs of socks, 2 underwear, 2 t-shirts, and a little bag with 1 hotel bar soap, 1 mini toothpaste, a mini pencil, a shaving razor, cup, and spoon
Take flight: To attack a person using fists
Time to Feed the Warden: One has to go to the bathroom. If the warden is going to feed us crappy food, we’re going to feed it back to him… digested.
Torpedo: Prison gangs are kind of like submarines. You have the captain, the Shot Caller,and his faithful enforcer, The Torpedo.
Vampire: People who draw blood
Vic or Vik: A victim or someone who’s about to be victimized; a convict who is a repeat offender and has spent most of their life in prison
Viking: Someone who is extremely lazy and unwilling to keep their living space or themselves clean.
Violators: Repeat offenders with two or more times in prison
Wakeup: Coffee
Wham whams: Cookies and candies
Zoom zooms: Cookies and candies
Now here’s the translation of the first paragraph!
“I’m the leader of the group/gang I hang out with, but my buddies are disappearing on me. One went nuts and committed suicide, one died in prison, one is very ill and dying. Two are in solitary confinement (one for hiding a cell phone in his ass), one is jacked up on psychiatric medication (he has life without parole), one is a crazy fool who was sent to the psych unit, one is a lazy slob who got HIV/AIDS, one was taken away in an ambulance after getting beaten up. The only one left is a new first-time offender who’s obsessed with a female prison guard. And me.”
And here’s the original for comparison:
Ihave the keysfor myCarbut myRoad Dogsare disappearing on me. One was5150andDid the Dutch,oneleft onBack Door Parole, one is aBB Filleron his way out. Twoare inThe Hole (one forKeisteringa cell phone), one is jackedup onBrake Fluid(he’s gotL Whop), one’s aJ-Catsent to theDing Wing,one is aDump Truck who caught theNinja,one was picked up by aMeat Wagonafter gettingMolly whooped.The only one left is aFishwho’s obsessed with a Kitty-Kitty. And me.”
Note: Please send us any prison slang words we’ve left out, include a definition and the state or prison where you’ve heard it. We’ll add them to the list, once we’ve verified their prevalence — and we’ll credit you! (or not, your choice) We’ll keep adding to this list — which we’ve built with help from our Prison Writers, slang dictionaries and correction officers’ websites.
