Wanted Words: The Language of Wanted Person Lists

Abstract

Wanted lists are a policing communicative tool that facilitates locating and apprehending persons wanted by the police through public engagement. To date, research has not investigated the language of these wanted lists. This paper begins to address this gap by examining the language of wanted lists produced by a Canadian municipal police agency from a critical sociolinguistic approach. The findings demonstrate that many linguistic features reflect features of a technical police or legal register (e.g., legal homonyms, uncommon words, nominalizations, passive constructions, and long complex sentences) and are inconsistent with the expected audience (the general public) and the expected goals of wanted lists. We suggest that this language can limit comprehension and reduce urgency, potentially reducing the public’s assistance in locating wanted persons. Alternative goals that the language appears to be orienting to are discussed, such as establishing a person as “wanted” (rather than providing information to facilitate the locating and arrest of a wanted person), reliance on public familiarity with a wanted person, social pressure, and image management. Recommendations are provided that are aimed at increasing public assistance in locating and apprehending wanted persons.