Chapter VIII. Criminal jargon among minors 1. The concept of criminal jargon

Historical excursion. The existence of "its" language (military, sports, scientific, commercial, medical, etc.) is one of the socio-psychological patterns of functioning of various social and professional groups and segments of the population. In the criminal world, there also exists its own language, which manifests itself in the form of thieves' (prison) jargon ("thieves' speech", "cronyism", "thieves' music", "damn about"). Criminal jargon is not an accident, but a natural phenomenon, reflecting the specifics of the subculture of the criminal environment, the degree of its organization and professionalism. Criminal slang is an international phenomenon. He was born and develops along with crime. There are many studies on the history, development and functioning of criminal jargon, as well as various dictionaries and reference books1.
However, in socio-psychological terms, this problem has not been studied sufficiently. Criminal slang is an inevitable attribute of the criminal subculture, but this does not mean that it should not be fought. In order to successfully combat criminal jargon, it is necessary to study the patterns of its development.
Historical excursion. There are various assumptions about the origin of the criminal and, in particular, the thieves' language. The most well-known hypothesis is that Athenian jargon is based on the language ofen, previously used by athens (they were also called walkers, kanchuzhniki, peddles, prasols) - small traders who walked around villages with icons, cheap popular products and other small goods.
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1 Baldaev D.S., Belko V.K., Isupov I.M. Dictionary of prison-camp-criminal jargon. M., 1992; Rogue music. Dictionary jargon of criminals. M., 1923; Rogue music. Dictionary of thieves language. M., 1927; Vakutin Yu.A. Dictionary of slang words and expressions. Tattoos. Omsk, 1979; Gross G. A Guide for Judicial Investigators. M., 1987; Leontyev A.A., Shakhnarovich AM, Blatov V.I. Speech in forensic science and forensic psychology (M., 1977; E. Maksimovskiy. Empire of fear. M., 1991; Milyanenkov LA On the other side of the law. Encyclopedia of the underworld. S.-Pb., 1992; Pirozhkov V.F. The laws of the underworld of youth. The criminal subculture. Tver, 1994.
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Hence, it is not by chance that in modern thieves language there are many words related to the language ofens. Yes, and the thieves' jargon itself is referred to as "Feni", and speaking in the jargon - "by the hairdryer". However, it should be borne in mind that in the process of developing the thieves' and criminal slang it was enriched at the expense of other "artificial" languages ​​that were used and are used by various closed groups of the population.
It is believed that in the event of a criminal jargon, it included many words from the professional language of sailors, which to a certain extent is international, as well as from languages ​​of different nations. There is, for example, a strong influence of Eastern languages ​​on him, as well as Hebrew and Gypsy1.
V.Chelidze traces the connection of the Ofen language with the jargon of musicians and actors - the Labuga dialect. For example, chi-ljat - walk, go (cf. Ofensky: praised - went), cool - good (same as ofensky), frail - bad (also coincides), lech - man (cf. Ofensky: loh - man) 2.
Thieves' language also included words from the language of beggars, which is also related to the language of оen to such an extent that "... thanks to the abundance of words, this language allowed to talk not only on narrow professional topics. Thief language itself, apparently, is more professional, although Of course, in his dictionary there are words for conducting and everyday conversations "3.
It is difficult to judge the degree of development of the thieves' jargon, since the available dictionaries reflect only part of the language used by criminal elements. Dictionaries show only the extent to which researchers and law enforcement officers know this language, and not its practical state. Perhaps this is "only an echo of the language used by the higher layers of the thieves' world and which is inaccessible to researchers" 4.
The development of the thieves' jargon was strongly influenced by vulgarisms borrowed from the Russian language. But to reduce the thieves' language to vulgarism, to profanity is impossible. Replenished at the expense of other "natural" and "artificial" languages, he contributed to the creation of languages ​​of various criminal communities, not related to thieves in law. On development
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1 Chelidze V. Criminal Russia. M., 1990, p. 88-89.
2 Ibid, p. 89
3 Ibid, p. 90.
4 Ibid, p. 91.
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criminal jargon is currently reflected, on the one hand, the professionalization of crime, the emergence of organized and corrupt crime, and on the other, its vulgarization. While this problem is studied poorly.
The functions of criminal jargon. Criminal jargon has much in common in patterns and development with other types of professional languages. And at the same time, it differs from them in its immoral content and criminal functions. The immorality of criminal jargon stems from the immorality of the criminal activity itself and the criminal way of life. The most important function of criminal jargon is to scramble thoughts and thereby ensure the viability of the criminal community. This is achieved by the constant dynamism of criminal jargon (constant changes in it, continuous updating of its vocabulary). In addition, in the criminal jargon, many synonyms. For example, to denote the ability to speak thieves' slang are used as synonyms of words and phrases: “by the hair dryer”, “to pound”, “to call in my own way”, “to blat”, “to get paid”, etc. There are about 180 terms for the prostitute. , informer (informer) - over 125, robbing - about 80, stealing (stealing) - 128, and so on.
Possession of criminal jargon has always been used by minors and young people as a means of self-affirmation in the criminal environment, emphasizing the alleged superiority of the criminal community over other people. It also arose from the objective necessity of recognizing "one's own" and distinguishing them into a special "caste" that opposes law-abiding citizens2. In this criminal jargon in their functions is similar to tattoos.
One of the most important functions of criminal jargon is the discovery with its help of persons who would like to infiltrate the criminal community. V. Chelidze calls this process a hierarchical diagnosis. Therefore, at certain moments only a part of the entire dictionary is used, which allows "to expose" agents sent by the authorities, who have studied the general basics of the language, but do not know all its subtleties at the moment3. Those who only borrow the thieves' practices, posing as inveterate "thieves in law", quickly fail
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1 See the Dictionary of Prison and Camp Slang. Authors-compilers Baldaev D.S., Belko V.K., Isupov I.M. M., 1992, Appendix 1. '
2 Gross G. A guide for judicial investigators. M., 1897
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are on such a language exam, because They do not know the true informational links operating in the underworld today.
Knowledge of the thieves' jargon is also necessary to reflect the intragroup hierarchical structure. Each "caste" has its own name here. Denoting each member of the community as jargon terms, one can immediately determine the rules of their behavior, rights and obligations, the system of relations with them, privileges and anti-liberties, which is also reflected in the dictionary.
Criminal lingo performs the function of serving criminal activity. This is his main purpose. The basic terminology in it denotes the content and nature of criminal activity, objects and tools of crime, situations and objects of criminal encroachment, subjects of criminal activity, methods and methods of committing crimes, ways of concealing traces of crimes and evading prosecution, etc.
And finally, criminal jargon is designed to ensure the internal life of the criminal community related to the division of production, the creation of a "common pot", the distribution of benefits from it, spending time, entertainment, sexual relations, resolution of disputes between members of a criminal group and between criminal groups "), as well as relationships with government officials, law enforcement officials, etc.
Thus, criminal jargon is intended to resolve communicative situations that arise in the criminal community due to different life situations: preparing and committing crimes, hiding traces, keeping secret from outside criminal intentions, identifying law enforcement agencies that have penetrated into the criminal environment, providing recreation and entertainment etc. All of this suggests that criminal jargon is a "full-fledged" means of communicating and communicating information in the criminal environment, the accumulator, custodian and transmitter to the next generations of criminal experience and criminal traditions, norms, rituals and other attributes of the criminal world.