[Ads-l] "rap sheet" (1932)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Here's a little earlier for "rap sheet":

rap sheet (OED 1949, Green 1940)  1931 Tulsa Tribune 31 May 7/6 (Newspapers.com)  W. F. Worley ... has a seven-year sentence for arson on his rap sheet.

Fred Shapiro



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Subject: "rap sheet" (1932)


OED has 1949. Green's has 1940 (the 1923 citation in that dictionary is a typo for 1973). Fred Shapiro previously posted a 1947 cite to this list, and Bill Mullins one from 1940 in the Tulsa Daily World. That paper has a number of citations from the 1930s, this is the earliest I have found:

“Criminals and Pictures Change Since First Police Photograph Back in 1913.” Tulsa Daily World (Oklahoma), 8 December 1932, 9/6. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

"'The heaviest rap sheet, however, doesn’t mean the most desperate criminal,' Charles Carr, detective sergeant will tell you.

"A crafty criminal like [Pretty Boy] Floyd will be picked up only once in a while and the police record on him will be incomplete. It’s those who don’t know their racket and bungle their jobs who get the heavy rap sheet records."

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