Green’s Dictionary of Slang

coat n.

[fig. use of SE coat as something one wears]

1. constr. with the, an arrest.

[SA]H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 23: I have been twice warned for the coat.

2. (S. Afr. prison) a life sentence [note the blue coat orig. worn by prisoners].

[SA]H. Levin Bandiet 123: The nine-to-never indeterminate sentence (known as a ‘coat’ after the blue coat originally worn by habituals).

3. (US und.) $100, in context of a bribe of payoff to the police.

L. Block Out on the Cutting Edge 48: A coat, in police parlance, is a hundred dollars. A hat is twenty-five. A pound is five. The terms took hold years ago, when [...] British currency pegged higher.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

coat party (n.)

(US prison) throwing a coat over a prisoner’s head prior to beating him up.

[US]Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Coat Party: Throwing a coat over a youth’s head and shoulders (so he can’t see) and beating him with fists and feet. This is usually done for non-payment of a debt.
coat-tugger (n.) (also tugger)

(Aus.) a racecourse tout; also attrib.; thus n. + vi./vtr. coat-tug, coat-tugging .

[Aus]J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 117: Whenever the Flea ran short of on-course moolah he used to indulge in a bit of coat-tugging.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxi: coat-tugger: a person found on racecourses who illegally offers tips for money. A tout. Note: Not to be misconstrued as a distant cousin known as the ‘lapel-tugger’ who would not wait for prospective clients to approach and instead would indicate that he was privy to ‘inside oil’ by signalling said ‘mark’ with a little tug on his own coat lapel.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxiv: ‘We all know about your reputation as a tugger [...]’ the male wal had said with a smirk.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers : ‘I fair dinkum fell for the old coat-tug trick. I must be the worst idiot mug in the world I reckon.’.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 255: [He] was [...] trying to coat-tug and flog his sometimes watery version of oil.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 240: [H]e was coat-tugged by a stranger who politely craved his indulgence before calling him to one side.
[Aus]J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxii: So when the word got around the traps and tracks about his being obliged to take on coat-tugging, a very strange and hitherto unheard-of, almost inconceivable thing happened.

In phrases

from coat-off to stagger-home

(Aus.) the length of the working day.

[Aus]L. Esson Bride of Gospel Place 109: Smithy: Talk about a sweater. It was head-down from coat-off to stagger-home.
on the coat (adj.) (also coated)

(Aus./N.Z. prison) ostracised, ‘sent to Coventry’.

[Aus]B. Ellem Doing Time 114: Child tamperers usually get together, mainly because the other prisoners have got a dirty on them, they put them on the coat sort of thing, so they usually end up together.
[NZ]D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 34: on the coat or coated adj. To be -; to be ostracised, shunned, to get nothing.
[NZ]D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 214: Put on the coat = shunned, ostracised, gets nothing. Other inmates don’t talk to you.