shot caller

English[edit]

A deverbal of call the shots.

shot caller (plural shot callers)

(slang) Someone in charge, especially the leader of a street gang.
- 2009, Samuel H. Pillsbury, How Criminal Law Works: A Conceptual and Practical Guide, page 346:
  Antonio Ramirez,^[sic] is a shot caller (a leader) of the A Street gang, a powerful criminal organization in the southern part of the state.
(US, prison slang) A prison inmate who holds informal authority over other inmates and who masterminds criminal activity.
- 2000, Christian Parenti, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, page 198:
  […] the CDC's campaign to isolate other "shot callers" in its new generation of super maximum security prisons.
- 2014, Carl Sifakis, The Encyclopedia of American Prisons, page 236:
  A hotbed for fights and race riots has long been California's Pitchess Detention Center, a Los Angeles County prison. These battles are masterminded by tattooed gang leaders called shot callers.
- 2019, Casey Diaz, Mike Yorkey, The Shot Caller […] , Emanate Books, →ISBN, page 76:
  People already knew me from the streets, so when the previous shot caller was transferred to a different state prison, a leadership vacuum was created. I was asked to fill it. One of the shot callers' responsibilities was to control the shanks within the prison population—the crude homemade knives used for stabbing another prisoner.