Police in Surrey are learning UK slang in an effort to understand the youth.
In a picture captured by a Surrey police officer and posted on social media which can be seen below, a whiteboard is shown featuring phrases and their supposed definitions.
Phrases such as “Beef-Ting Fam”, “Peng”, “Roadman” and “Ting” are among the terms being taught to police officers and described as “Youth Language”. For example, for “Roadman”, the explanation given is a “teenager who involves themselves in smoking weed, no education, puffa jacket and man bag” and most importantly, “acting hard on a bike”.
“Wagwan” is written to mean “Greeting; “Hello, how are you?” and “Ting” as “sexual relations”.
For artist and philanthropist Stormzy, the definition given is “not the weather, rapper from Croydon”. Perhaps proving the police with an introduction to the Gang Signs and Prayer rapper is a step in the right direction after the Met mistakenly raided his home in West London last year under the presumption that he was a burglar. Stormzy tweeted, “Woke up to Feds destroying my front door coz apparently I’m a burglar who burgles his own home. @metpoliceuk need your bank details still”.
On the teaching of the slang terms to officers, a spokesman for the Lancashire Police said, “It’s in place to help the neighbourhood team understand some of the terms and phrases used by teenagers”.
Sheldon Thomas, chief executive of Gangsline which aims to support individuals involved in gang culture said on the police training, “This is how they speak, you have to adapt your strategy. How can you serve a community if you don’t understand the community?”
The news comes after reports of significant cuts to police funding and a lack of understanding by MPs on the impact it is having within communities. According to statistics, 44,000 police officers have been cut since 2010. The chief superintendent recently described the police service in England and Wales as “On verge of crisis”.