I'm only guessing that the spelling would be different from 'knee high pantaloons', but recently while watching the BeeB program called "Prime Suspect" I heard the (slang?)term 'nick' for both the police station and the jail... and for the act of arresting a criminal. Is this the *popular verbification process or did the noun come later?

The earliest use I've ever heard for 'nick' (here in the US) is a name for the marks one gets on thier favorite baseball bat when they take it down to the river and hit rocks and pebbles with it.