Criminal tattoo
Over time, tattooing began to be used to mark prisoners and those who committed crimes, so law enforcement would be able to monitor those who disrupted and caused harm to communities.
[6] Rebels and lawless individuals started to mark themselves with tattoos to signify their actions which they took pride in or identified with; this could be acts of rebellion, crimes, personal beliefs, and commitment to a certain group.
[6] Prisoners who were transported from Britain to Australian penal colonies between 1787 and 1867 were sometimes tattooed with marks intended to signify disgrace, for example, D for deserter.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Italy implemented the Bertillonage system as a means to identify criminals; this method was used to also target anyone who was a threat to social order and was deemed "suspicious".
[11] Yakuza, the organized crime syndicate of Japan, dates back to the 17th century and maintains a strong loyalty.
The tattoos could cover arms, chest, back, and legs, but may not be visible when wearing traditional Japanese garments, such as a kimono, due to the specific placement.
Due to a clear association between tattoo artistry and crime, the practice was shortly banned following the Meiji restoration period.
"As Russia's leading expert on tattoo iconography, Mr. Arkady Bronnikov can tell the prisoner's story from looking at the designs on his body.
The huge spider in a web that is drawn on his skull reveals, in prison tattoo code, that he is a drug addict.
The ink is often created from burning the heel of a shoe and mixing the soot with urine, and injected into the skin utilizing a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver.
[contradictory][18] "In [Russian] prison, the ink for tattoos was manufactured from molten rubber mixed with water and sugar.
These tattoos may be placed on an individual who fails to pay debts in card games, or otherwise breaks the criminal code, and often have very blatant sexual images, embarrassing the wearer.
They frequently consist of slurs about the bearer's ethnicity, sexual orientation, or perceived cooperation with the prison authorities.
They can indicate that the holder is a member of a political group considered offensive by other prisoners (e.g., Vlasovite), or has been convicted of a crime (such as child rape) that is disapproved of by other criminals.
A Russian criminologist, Yuri Dubyagin, has claimed that, during the Soviet era, there existed "secret orders" that an anti-government tattoo must be "destroyed surgically", and that this procedure was usually fatal.
Hispanic gangs have a trend of using old English script and incorporating religious themes in their tattoos, as a substantial portion of members and their families are Catholic.
[29] Markers of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white Neo-Nazi prison gang include but are not limited to the letters AB, Celtic imagery, and the number 666.
[34] Themes of racism are evident in Aryan Brotherhood gang tattoos through white supremacist language and Nazi references.
Studies have shown that inmates would receive tattoos while serving their sentence are more extroverted; they have a sense of belonging and embrace being a prisoner.
Improvised tattooing equipment has been assembled from materials such as mechanical pencils, Bic pens, radio transistors, staples, paper clips, or guitar strings.
[36] The code systems can be quite complex, and because of the nature of what they encode, the designs of criminal tattoos are not widely recognized as such to outsiders.
Women and girls being forced into prostitution against their will may have their pimps' name or gang symbol inked or branded with a hot iron on their skin.
