MadScientistMatt said:
However, I don't really know that much about prison tattoos. What do they use for a needle and ink? What sort of designs do prisones usually have done? How common are health complications?
I work in a prison and see their handiwork often.
Here in Australia they use anything with a point, but if they can find a motor from something to give it an oscillation that is preferred. Walkman motors, mobile phone motors (some have them for silent pulse ringing), even the motor from a small desk fan will be fair game.
The goal is to get the pin oscilatting several times a second but with amplitude of only a few millimetres. Many home-made prison tatt guns have a spring built in, perhaps a twist of metal or plastic, to level out the movement like the shock-absorbers on a car level out the bumps.
Ink can be anything with colour. I know an inmate who does his own tatts with a sharpened staple and ballpen ink. He does designs on his hands and arms, legs, chest, left and right handed with equal skill. Because ballpen fades in a few years he does something else over it.
Designs are limitless, but there are lots of gang tattoos. Sometimes these are merely a pattern of dots, each one representing the next person in the 'family'. These seemingly simple gang patterns mean a very serious involvement in gang crime. We get Maori inmates and their tattoos are often gang related but very ornate. They tattoo one or two thighs almost down to the knee. They sometimes tattoo one side of the face in gang designs - making it impossible to hide the gang identity - there is no way out.
Many designs here are celtic knotwork or graphic bands around the biceps about an inch or two wide. The skin inside the biceps is very sensitive and those who have the inner part of their bicep inked are demonstrating their ability to take the pain. Many men do not have the complete band.
Names of girlfriends, wives, and increasingly of children are very common. Hearts, roses, daggers, skulls with snakes through the eye sockets are common. Indigenous Americans with feather head-dress are surprisingly common. Marijuana leaves seem to be not so popular as they were twenty years ago. We get the tear drop under the eye, and sometimes dots on the earlobe. Swallows between thumb and forefinger are common, as if they move as the thumb is opened and closed.
Some of the asian inmates have ornate chinese lions and dragons that take up the whole of the back. Some of the asian tattoos have something rubbed into them and they stand out from the skin like heavy embroidery. The combination of the art and the relief texture is very striking and sensual. Just as you might walk past a piece of antique furniture and run your hand over it, I've seen relief asian dragons that have made me want to do the same thing.
We get white supremacist tatts, either the words across the upper back or symbols such as patterned swaztikas. White guys often have Chinese characters, perhaps a line of them down the upper arm or one on each knuckle. The characters are for qualities such as strength, power, stamina. Jokes abound about men who ask for such characters and the tattooist gives him replacements, such as 'not the best looking guy a girl can find', etc.
We also get lots of Aboriginal flags on indigenous inmates. Although most indigenous inmates have a personal totem they do not use this for tattoo designs. Asian, on the other hand, do sometimes tattoo their totem. With the increase in middle eastern origin inmates we get the cedar of Lebanon and/or crescent moon.
Significant tatts are recorded as inmate identification, but if a man is heavily tattooed they do not worry about more than the main designs. There is no increase in sentence if a man gets tatts while in prison in this country. Neither are the officers on the lookout for new tatts. The inmate I referred to above did his own tatts with the full knowledge of the staff. However, if he was to do it with a tatt gun they would confiscate it and he would be charged with possession of an implement.
Many of our officers also have tatts, men and women. I've seen full biceps bands on women officers, something of a challenge in that to inmates as well as to male staff.
Health complications principally come when the gun is used by several inmates without being properly cleaned. Prisons are the bus interchange for hepatitis and AIDS. Ballpen ink is the most common pigment and it is not toxic. Because it is easily available they do not need to go inventing other inks out of questionable ingredients.
That should be enough to go on for a while.
Kim
