Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (also slammers) prison; also attrib.

1936		D. Burley in Chicago Defender 9 May 23: Back Door’s Revised Dictionary [...] the slammer — 48th St. jail.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 17: The Lane [...] came up with a kill joy, who tagged the play with a slammer issue.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 58: Stay out of town or them same citizens will slap you right into the crummiest slammer in Texas.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 352: That [...] speedway action you just put down rates you an automatic trip to the slammers.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 221: I did a year in the slammer.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 64: Not unless you want to end up in the slammer.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 108: You are Omar Gonzalez, aren’t you? If you’re not, it’s the fuzz and the slammer.
1984		Benjamin & Pearl Limericks Down Under 91: It has twice the glamour / Of your typical slammer.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 139: Cos your kind is in and out of the slammer, more in than out, so ya lose touch, son. With reality. With what’s going on in the world.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 73: With dad in the slammer so much I’d done all the repairs around mum’s house.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] [A] lot of good professionals [...] were now in the slammer.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] It was simple things I’d missed about home when I was in the slammer.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: slammer n.1. Prison, lockup.
1999		Indep. Mag. 3 July 25: A gent who’d spent a total of 27 years in the slammer for a wide variety of offences.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] Her kid, he’s naughty, studyin at this new place, the Port Phillip college, new slammer.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 169/1: slammer, the n. 1 prison.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 72: I don’t come down to your courtroom and tell you who to throw in the slammer.
2008		Camden New Journal (London) 9 Oct. 12/3: Mario’s 14 hours in the ‘slammer’ was no joke.
2010		K. Richards Life 15: All of us would be detained on felony charges - i.e., put in the slammer.
2012		A. Savage ‘Killing Peacocks’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I was a good pool player — I’d had hours of practice in the slammer.
2014		M.E. Fitch ‘Tommy, Who Loved to Laugh’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] ‘[Y]ou did nothing but take it up the ass in the slammer’.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] Scotty ends up in hospital, Jasper and Martin in the slammer.
2024		D. Swierczynski California Bear 211: ‘You probably used cash instead of a credit card, since you’re fresh out of the slammer’.

(b) (US black) a door.

1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Aug. 11/1: The jitterbugs copping their outer-vines and skimmers and trucking to the slammer to hit the ozone.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 25: While at the kitchen slammer, he kept might mum.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 84: You had to pull up in a diamond-studded limousine [...] before the doorman would even reach for the twister to your slammer.
1959		H. Ellison ‘Sally in Our Alley’ in Gentleman Junkie (1961) 121: You know who that was at the slammer?
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 78: We walked to the ‘slammer’.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 36: Bubbles, the Dane, had taken station near the front slammer.
1996–2000		(con. 1940s) Deuce Ofay Productions ‘The Jive Bible’ at JiveOn.com 🌐 [...] Check his action – he gots a fly crutch, a diff’rent zoot suit fo’ every piece o’ seven an’ a rep dat come through de slammer trey hours befo’ he slide in.

(c) (US) a psychiatric hospital.

1961

Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia x: Will I be put in the slammer [mental hospital] if I flunk?

(d) (Aus./N.Z. prison) solitary confinement, or the cell in which it served.

1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 197: slammer: a prison cell.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: slammer n. 2. Solitarv confinement.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 169/1: slammer, the n. 2 = pound, the sense 1.