Criminal tattoo
As tattoo became a peculiar feature of European culture it was greatly developed. Though, the times came when the culture of tattooing was forbidden by church. It was time when people forgot about tattoo and its culture passed to syncope. Though, there were some groups of people who never forget about the tattoo and were developing this culture for years long. Nowadays, those groups are groups of the most developed tattooing culture. Not hard to be those are groups of people who never follow the common rules of society – the group of criminals.
Tattoo for prison is not just a decoration and were never considered that way. A tattoo for those who are imprisoned is like the ID for people. They have their tattoos according to their status and deeds, according to their way of life and behaviour. One can't have certain tattoo if that tattoo is not appropriate for his status as he will has a number of troubles. The rarest tattoos in prison and at the same time the tattoos of greatest value are the stars. Those are indication that a person is greatly respected by everyone and is considered as big fish in prison.
Stars are usually patterned on shoulders or fore-shoulders. The stars patterned on external of shoulders are the tattoo that means charity for police officers. The stars can also be patterned on one's knees and it will exchange such message "will never kneel towards cops". Such tattoos are not just expression of inner thoughts of a criminal but the rules obliged for his following those. In case if a criminal will act the way different of that identified with his tattoo a number of troubles he will have.
Another kind of tattoo common for prisons and criminals is a seal ring. Those may be of different kinds and so of different meanings. It's not hard to be that seal rings are patterned only on fingers. Those are the tattoo of thieves. No other caste of criminals is allowed to have the seal rings on their fingers. According to history if criminal tattoos the seal rings replace the common rings that hindered the pocket-picking. Later those tattoos were provided with the broad culture of its patterning and meaning.
The meaning of each seal ring depends on the picture of it. For example the seal ring with a grating on it means one who was born in prison. The face of a devil surrounded with barblock is an indication of one who betrayed the rules of a prison and thievish code. Common for criminal were the tattoos with the date of their imprisoning or their number in prison. As a rule those tattoos were decorated with certain symbol of violence like knife, gun or else.
Though, as the culture of criminal tattoo became wide-know it underwent recession among criminals. There were a few of those who still indicated themselves as people who belong to certain caste. In most cases criminal tattoo were patterned on places of body that are hidden of public eye. Typical for American gangsters was hidden tattoo of handcuffs with one or two broken links, as a symbol of freedom and amulet against get arrested.