Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also boobie patch) a prison, a police station, a police patrol wagon.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 13: booby-hatch Station-house; watch-house.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 100/2: The best thing we can do is to leave this ‘drum’ as soon as possible, or we shall be in the ‘booby hatch’ before supper.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 14 Sept. n.p.: She [was] fighting all the way to the ‘booby hatch’.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 28 Apr. 5/6: ‘Been in the Booby Hatch?’ says he [...] ‘I heard that you had been arrested’.
1897		Ade Pink Marsh (1963) 114: He’d get gay an’ tell that Twenty-fourth Street girl all about it an’ she’d tell somebody else an’ they’d have him in the booby-hatch in about two hours.
1897		Black and White XIII 123/2: ‘A three spot in the boobie patch for the guy with the bum skate,’ said the court calmly.
		Truth (Brisbane) 10 Apr. 5/2: The great, all-fired son of Salvation spent Christmas and Boxing Days in the booby hatch for stouching, slanging, and other similar harmless recreations.
c.1906		‘Sleepy’ Burke Prison Gates Ajar 9: I was sent to the ‘boobie patch’ (jail).
1908		B.D. Fisher A. Mutt in Fisher A Mutt Complete Compilation (1977) 37: I have gathered enough evidence to send Mutt to the booby hatch for ten million years.
1909		N.Z. Truth 30 Jan. 5/1: Nellie and Fred were placed in the horrible booby-hatch that hold the casual drunk and the shameless prostitute.
1909		F.H. Tillotson How I Became a Detective 90: Boobie hatch – Police station.
1909		Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 12 Jan. 2/6: Supposing any one of us was to get lumbered and flopped into that match box clink and a fire was to burst out, you can bet your sweet life that the lovely John Hopper and his missus and the kinchins would do a Carrington and leave the poor philgarlick in the booby hatch to frizzle.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 June 2nd sect. 13/4: The application of the principies of ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ has brought about a considerable decrease in the average number of criminals interned in the Eastern booby-hatches.
1917		Day Book (Chicago) 21 Feb. 21/2: Try going out [...] with only a string of pearls on. You’ll land in the booby hatch.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 130: We was goin’ to the booby-hatch together.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 33: Booby Hatch. – A police station or village gaol. No doubt so called since the tramp and criminal regards anyone who is foolish or careless enough to fall into the hands of the police as no better than a booby.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: We ought to phone de boobyhatch to send round de wagon for ’em.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		Mad mag. Jan.–Feb. 10: Friday and Satur were sentenced to life imprisonment in the state booby hatch.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 791: booby hatch – A police station.

2. (also booby box, …cage) a lunatic asylum.

1896		F.P. Dunne in Schaaf Mr Dooley’s Chicago (1977) 242: Th’ inmates of th’ booby hatch out at Dunning.
1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 84: He’s either full of truth serum or he escaped from some booby hatch — let’s take it on the hoof before he begins to rave.
1908		B. Fisher ‘A Mutt’ [comic strip] [heading] The Loon Commissioners, at Defendant’s Request, Send Him to the Booby Cage.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 July 14/1: Sodden ’n’ sorry ’n’ boomin’ in th’ turret I wuz bounced to the booby hatch.
1912		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 47: (The Judge Takes Harry To A Booby Hatch) Hey Harry I’ve got to see a Doc up at the bughouse. Wonna take a slant around the joint? Get me?
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 109: Now you will say I’m ready for the booby-hatch!
1933		J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 118: You’re in the booby-hatch now.
1935		C.G. Finney Circus of Dr Lao 22: They got a booby hatch in this state for people what gets funny notions.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 182: The gangsters [...] kept a death grip on everything else in this booby-hatch of a country.
1954		J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 186: I’d hate to testify about this. I’d get the booby-hatch!
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 104: Frank Feeney, is being taken to the Elgin State Hospital for the Insane this morning [...]. Members of his family are loyally escorting him to the booby hatch.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 17: How in the name of carnation some people go through life without their getting locked up in what we used to call the Booby Hatch [...] sure beats me!!!
1986		S. King It (1987) 658: He’s about three steps away from the booby hatch.
1987		‘Barbara Vine’ A Fatal Inversion 151: Suppose I said I came out of the booby hatch.
1989		R. Atkinson Long Gray Line (1990) 327: Funny farm, loony bin, cuckoo’s nest, booby hatch, nut house, cracker box, psycho ward.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1907		News & Courier (Charleston, SC) 14 Apr. 18/2: Cantering around like a booby hatch bug.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 303: [...] watched by them [...] with booby-hatch glares. [Ibid.] 458: The booby-hatch voices would scream, sing, and chirp.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 153: You booby-box score was higher than ‘Sweet’s’.

4. a hiding-place, e.g. a dug-out.

1917

W.H. Walp diary 18 Dec. 🌐 When you’re crouching in your booby hatch / In the slimy, sticky slush.