jail fodder

English

Alternative forms

• jailfodder

Etymology

From jail +‎ fodder, i.e. food to be fed to jails. Probably by analogy with cannon fodder.

Noun

jail fodder (uncountable)

1. A person with criminal tendencies who is considered to be expendable, worth nothing more than to occupy a jail.

   Coordinate term: jailbait

   • 1985, Anthony Burgess, chapter 4, in The Kingdom of the Wicked, London: Hutchinson:

     Philos grew redly truculent. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t need the advice of a lump of Jewish jailfodder—’

   • 2001, Alan Taylor, chapter 14, in American Colonies, Penguin, published 2002, page 315:

     Between 1718 and 1775, the empire transported about fifty thousand felons, more than half of all English emigrants to America during that period. The transported were overwhelmingly young, unmarried men with little or no economic skill: the cannon fodder of war and the jail fodder of peace.

   • 2016, Vickie Roach, quoted in Elle Hunt, “Safe space,” The Guardian, 24 November, 2016,^[1]

     The history of Australia since colonisation has been telling us that we’re stupid, dumb, we’re drunks, we’re just jail fodder, we’re all criminals, we’re dirty, we can’t look after our kids, we all sniff petrol, now we do ice.