Even before that

Editor's Note: One of the writers is prior military.

April 3, 2007 (San Dimas, CA) Police-Writers.com is a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books. On April 1st, we published information about the oldest known police writer – Thomas Byrnes. Turns out, we had the right department, but there was a police officer who published a book before Thomas Byrnes’ 1886 work.

In 1845 George Matsell was appointed first Chief of the New York Police Department. In 1859, or thereabouts, he published The Secret Language of Criminals: Vocabulum or The Rouge’s Lexicon. Essentially a dictionary of street slang from the mid-19th Century, it has interesting terms from the era, as well as some insights to our ‘street language’ today. As an example, George Matsell likely printed the first reference to “Dukes” as meaning hands, as in “Put up your Dukes.” In another example, he records that before the Civil War the word “crib” meant someone’s residence, as it does today.

In addition to George Matsell, two other New York City police officers were added to the website.

Jerry Ferguson served in the United States Army from 1961 to 1964. He joined the New York Transit Police Department in 1965, retiring in 1990 after 25 years of service. In 1991, he entered the Federal service, again retiring in 2005. A writer of poetry and short-stories, he is the author of nine books, including Jerry’s Own-Seeds of Wisdom; which according to the book description is “a collection of personal thoughts, expressed usually in one line on the important subject of Wisdom. Each one is numbered and there are 366 of them. Simple ideas which if reflected upon are important criteria’s to living a good life.” His other books, which are available exclusively through the author are: The Sponsor, Spirituality Plus, Subway Blues, The Pusher Case, The Murders of the Century Case, The Case of The Anonymous Souls, The Case of the Missing Prima Ballerina; and, The Case of the New York City Slicer!

James Reardon, a former New York Police Department police officer who published two novels – Big Time Tommy Sloane and Sweet Life of

Police-Writers.com now hosts 442 police officers (representing 191 police departments) and their 932 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.