Occupational Language

Police

Jargon is a form of shorthand language that is appropriate only to certain members of a particular group, and meaningless outside of context.

Police jargon is the specialised language used within the line of police duty, law enforcement and criminal justice which follows a long line of abbreviations, acronyms, codes and slang. This provides a sufficient method for people within the profession to communicate with one another, creating a discourse community whereby only people within the field understand the language spoken.  The subject specific lexis (which creates a semantic field) puts the speaker in a position of positional power, creating authority however excluding people outside of the discourse community.

Examples of jargon used by the police:

Suspect - suspects are the people that the police are looking at for a crime. Other names for suspect might include defendants, arrestees, or persons of interest.

10-4 - even little kids playing cops and robbers know what this means. It means, "OK" or "Got it". However, the codes have changed a bit to be more clear due to most, if not all, police officers talking over radios now.

P.O.V. - Personally Owned Vehicle (versus patrol car, etc.) is all this means

Code Eight - serious situation where an officer is requesting help immediately. If you're a police officer on duty, you drop everything and go right away. 

Taking a code 7 - this simply means you're on lunch break

Code Eleven - you're on the scene

Assumed room temperature - an individual has died

Examples of business jargon used by the police:

FTP - "Failure To Pay" means a fine wasn't paid in accordance to the law. This bit of police jargon also applies to businesses when, for example, a customer hasn't paid for the service rendered or product delivered.

NFA - "No Further Action" - this one is pretty self-explanatory. In the business world it could mean that a client is satisfied or a complaint has been resolved.

WOFF - "Write off" - in police jargon, it means property has been written off for insurance purposes, the same that's often done in business.

House Mouse - this refers to a police officer that rarely leaves the building for one reason or another. A house mouse in the business world might refer to someone who is always on site to help the associates in the field (contact person).