Previous research

From June 1978 to December 1980, a field study was conducted at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, USA. The study attempted to bring together some elements of language and selected aspects of the social structure of a maximum-security prison. One of the researchers was an inmate so could interview the prisoners freely, the hypothesis stated that as language shapes and is shaped by culture, prisoners reveal the world view through the language they use. The data presents the stories of the prisoners, as free as possible from theoretical opinion and bias to uncover a valid picture of prison life. Each man interviewed wanted to tell those unfamiliar with prison life what it was like. Each chapter of the book focuses on one particular part of the prison culture that the men found important. The material covers the majority of the experience and covered various theories regarding prison culture and the prisoners views. The overall results of the data show a lengthy glossary of slang and argot terms (colloquialism) suggesting that the prisoners had their own language features developed as a result of being with one another everyday for a long period of time.

How to Spot Psychopaths: Speech Patterns Give Them Away = 
Scientists looked for patterns in convicted murderers' speech in New York as they described their crimes. They interviewed 52 convicted murderers, 14 of which ranked as psychopaths according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and asked them to describe their crimes in detail. Researchers found that those with psychopathic scores showed a lack of emotion, spoke in terms of cause-and-effect when describing their crimes and focused their attention on basic needs. Analysis revealed that psychopaths used about twice as many words related to basic psychological needs and self-preservation, including eating, drinking and monetary resources, than non-psychopaths.
By comparison, non-psychopathic murderers talked more about spirituality and religion and family.

Oral Language Competence in Incarcerated Young Offenders: Links with Offending Severity = 
Research in Australia and overseas has shown that young offenders serving community-based orders (provides offenders with an opportunity to undergo treatment or take part in educational, vocational or personal development programs. In some cases, a community-based order may involve a requirement to perform a community service) are at high-risk for undetected but clinically significant oral language difficulties. Links with offending severity, mental health and other markers of early risk have not previously been systematically examined.
100 young offenders with a mean age of 19.03 years completing custodial sentences in Victoria, Australia were studied. A range of standardised oral language, IQ, mental health and offending severity measures was employed. 46% of participants were classified as language impaired (LI) and these were compared with the non-LI sub-group on background and offending variables. When the sub-group with high scores on a measure of offending severity was compared with relatively lower lower offending scores, significant differences on a range of language measures were identified. Emphasis is placed on the need to closely examine oral language skills of children who struggle with the transition to literacy and then display behavioural difficulties in the classroom.

Prison Language: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Language of British Young Offenders in the Twenty-First Century = 
A specific language was spoken within the walls of a maximum security prison in the south-east of England between 2006 and 2007. Researchers looked at the adolescent who became an offender and how his language is thereby altered, exploring language in groups and drawing on various psychologists and theorists. The social structures and language enforced was examined as well as what the prisoners learned from the researchers' language, and vice versa. The researcher studied the nature of learning a language inside a prison.
"I tried to determine to what extent language comes from outside influences and to what extent it forms and permutates inside... I regard prison language as a psychic retreat,... and I ask questions not only about the prisoners, but also the function of learning inside a prison itself, while regarding the language used as a depressive defence."

You Talkin' to Me? Criminal Language =
For hundreds of years it's been necessary for criminals to communicate their business in a way that the police or other officials wouldn't necessarily understand. In Shakespeare's day, thieves used innocent language to disguise their true intentions. Originally called Thieves' Cant, the language is about as old as the modern English language. The flavour of language was so appealing that it made its way into plays and pamphlets. 
Since those times, various elements of cant have survived, even if the original language itself has not. So the language of criminals is in constant flux, taking on new words and meanings throughout the ages, specifically to confound people in authority while lending an air of mystique and romance to the criminal element. Cockney rhyming slang, in which particular words are replaced by words or phrases that rhyme with them in order to hide the intended meaning, is an example of coded language. Throughout history it has been used by locals to confuse out-of-towners, by traders to conspire to make even more bangers (bangers and mash = cash), and by more underhanded individuals so they didn't have to resort to telling porkies (pork pies = lies) in broad daylight to cover up their illicit dealings. Even today we can look at aspects of criminal life and come up with the specific terms that euphemize and obfuscate the meaning. A getaway driver is a 'wheelman', stolen goods are referred to as 'hot', jewellery (particularly diamonds) targeted for theft is 'ice, and so on. Even systems of measure such as an ounce or kilo, or even a keeg (a pronounced name of the abbreviation for kilogram: kg) becomes language referring to drugs. 

Prison Lingo: The language of the Prison Community = 
'Prison Lingo: The Language of the Prison Community' is the result of a collaboration between the English Project and HMP Winchester in October 2010. That year, the theme of the English Language Festival was the language of Place and Community, and prisoners were invited to listen to a talk about the origins and development of prison cant, slang and jargon and, at the same time, to contribute their own knowledge of prison language and to talk about their use of it. Six prisoners, two officers and a university professor engaged in a two-and-a-half-hour seminar tat mixed lecture, class work and chat. One prisoner was new to the system; another had spent ten years in various prisons. Two prisoners came from Europe, and one of them was more interested in learning Standard English that Prison English. The most voluble prisoner was an Afro-Caribbean; the most informative made the comment that the important thing about prison lingo is wit. An extract from the glossary below gives some of the words and terms that these men provided. 
Prison Lingo is primarily a spoken language; it can be written down, but it is not intended to be used for writing and so it has its own special features and its own problems for students. Prison Lingo overlaps with street talk, teen talk, rhyming slang, Cockney and the home dialects or prisoners so it is sometimes difficult to say whether a certain word or phrase should be included, but there is a host of words that are clearly part of prison lingo. 
Julie Coleman, a linguist at the University of Leicester, has provided some useful terms to help researchers discuss special forms of the English language like prison lingo. She talks about slang, jargon and cant (affected singsong or whining speech): 'slang is defined as the ephemeral terms used by an in-group in order to distinguish them from other groups; jargon is defined as a professional language allowing for precise discussion of topics related to the given vocation; an cant is defined as a language used to obfuscate meaning completely from those not accepted by the in-group, ordinarily for criminal intent.' Prison lingo has an element of all three.