good cop bad cop

Slang definitions & phrases for good cop bad cop

good cop bad cop

modifier

Marked by alternations between friendliness and hostility, easiness and rigor, etc: Successful management requires a variation of the ''good cop, bad cop'' routine/ In short, a ''nice cop'' Rousseau and a ''tough cop'' Rousseau/ I think that she's the good cop and he's the bad one, and I think it's quite deliberate

[fr the interrogation technique by which one police officer pretends to sympathize with the suspect and to protect him from a pitiless and menacing fellow officer]