ACAB
anti-police acronym meaning "All Cops Are Bastards"
ACAB, an acronym for all cops are bastards, is a political slogan associated with those opposed to the police and commonly expressed as a catchphrase in graffiti or tattoos. It is sometimes expressed as 1312, with each digit representing the position of the corresponding letter in the English alphabet.
Background
The phrase "all cops are bastards" first appeared in England in the 1920s, then was abbreviated to "ACAB" by workers on strike in the 1940s. The acronym is historically associated with criminals in the United Kingdom. First reported as a prison tattoo in the 1970s, it is commonly rendered as one letter per finger, or sometimes disguised as a small dot across each knuckle. In 1970, the Daily Mirror used ACAB as the headline of an article which stated it was borne by a Hells Angel on the street. Film director Sidney Hayers also used a censored version as the title of his 1972 crime drama All Coppers Are.... In 1977, a Newcastle upon Tyne journalist saw it written on the walls of a prison cell.
During the 1980s, ACAB became an anti-establishment symbol, especially within the punk and skinhead subcultures. It was popularized in particular by the 1982 song "A.C.A.B." by Oi!
The public source identifies “ACAB” as anti-police acronym meaning "All Cops Are Bastards". This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around ACAB, anti-police and acronym.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q278128. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1312, 1970, 1972 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “ACAB” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.