Tattoos

Quote :

Criminal tattoos are in fashion among gang members and criminals.
Through tattoos marked over their bodies, criminals show their
allegiance to their respective gangs. It is interesting to note that
many times criminal tattoos record the wearer's personal skills,
specialties, accomplishments and convictions. Certain Criminal tattoos
have developed recognized as coded meanings. Right from Russian, US,
Vietnam, Thailand, and so on criminal tattoos have an intricate system
of symbols containing information about the person having that tattoo.
Be it a simple rose or a spade or a skull, each of the criminal tattoo
stands for something unique. To know more about the types of criminal
tattoo existing in various countries, browse through the following
lines.

I was reading up on criminal tattoos. Thought it would be smart to post something about it. Do you guys know of any tattoos to keep an eye out for?


Here's some I know about:

• 14 - The number 14 is associated with white supremacists/neo-nazis
  
• ACAB - Can stand for both "All Cops Are Bastards" or "Always Carry A Bible"
  
• mi vida loca - "My Crazy Life" popular with Hispanic criminals
  
• Spade - Russian criminals see this as a symbol for thieves
  
• Clubs - Russian symbol for criminal
  
• Diamonds - Russian symbol for Informants/squealers
  
• Hearts - Russian symbol for sex (not the good kind)
  
• Five Dots (spaced like a 5 on dice) - Found between the first finger and thumb. Represents prisoner and four walls of prison.
  
• Three Dots on hand - French. Death to cops.
  
• Dot on cheek - Pimp
  
• Barbed wire across the forehead signifies a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole(tattoos on the face usually signifies an expectation that the bearer will never leave prison). Barbed wire on the forearms or around the wrist signifies years served.
  
• Birds over horizon: "I was born free and should be free." Bearer longs for life outside prison.
  
• Cat: a career as thief. A single cat means the bearer worked alone; several cats mean the bearer was part of a gang.
  
• Celtic Cross: Part of the racist white power movement. It has also been used to represent crosshairs of a gun, meaning that wearer is a hit man and he too will meet a violent end one day.[5]
  
• Churches, mosques, fortresses, etc. are often tattooed on the chest, back, or hand. The number of spires or towers can represent the years a prisoner has been incarcerated, or number of times he has been imprisoned. A cross at the top of the spire indicates that the sentence was paid in full. The phrase, "The Church is the House of God," often inscribed beneath a cathedral, has the metaphorical meaning, "Prison is the Home of the Thief."
  
• Dots on knuckles: number of years served in prison.
  
• Madonna and baby Jesus indicates that the bearer is 'clean before his friends' in that he will never betray them to authorities.
  
• Dagger: sex offender
  
• Dagger in neck: Signifies that the bearer is available for hire to kill other prisoners.
  
• Executioner: Murderer, or that they follow the The Thieves' Code[5]
  
• Goat: Informer, an animal without honour.
  
• Lenin, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels: Usually tattooed across the chest or over vital organs. Mostly characteristic of the Old regime; prisoners would tattoo them because the firing squad could not shoot the images of USSR's founding fathers.
  
• Rose (white-dried): Death is preferable to loss of virtue.[6]
  
• Rose with thorns: Bearer came of age in prison.
  
• Spider or spider web: may symbolize racism or doing time in prison[7]
  
• Spider Web: If the spider is in the centre, the bearer is dedicated to a life of crime; if it is climbing out of the web, the bearer is trying to reform himself. A few other versions are that the wearer is a drug addict, like an insect trapped in a spider's web he is trapped in some kind of a narcotic web, or that it signifies time in prison as each ring of the spider web represents one year in prison.
  
• Tombstones represent the loss of time. You may see the number of years that are served (i.e. five tombstones reading 2001–2005 means the prisoner has done five years).
  
• SS: two sig runes were the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, Nazi insignia.
  
• Stars: Worn on the knees: signifies that the owner will kneel before no man, or no one.
  
• Stars: Worn on the shoulders: Signifies that the owner is a man of discipline, status, and tradition. Men will also receive stars when promoted to "Captain" in the Vory V Zakone.
  
• Skulls: Signifies murder, if the murder was significant enough to merit the tattoo. Military insignia and uniform epaulets are worn on the shoulders. This symbolizes criminal accomplishments. When a skull symbol is portrayed with it, it usually designates a man as a murderer. Epaulets are decorated with certain crests and symbols in the sections where one can see the skull there prior to conviction, especially when it was of any significance.
  
• Swastika: This is seen on Neo-Nazis as it is the symbol of the Nazi party.
  
• LOVE and HATE: This is often seen on criminals and thugs across their knuckles. It is said to have started from the film in the 1960s The Night of the Hunter in which the serial killer bears this tattoo.
  
• Borstal mark (or Borstal spot): Is an Indian ink dot, usually located between the thumb and forefinger of the hand or under the eye. Borstals were UK youth detention centers, and the mark was traditionally obtained during an offender's first period of imprisonment. The borstal mark has been considered a status symbol among some criminals. The "Borstal Glove" consists of a tattooed outline on the back of the hand. A dot on the cheek bone is a diluted version of the borstal "tear", a sign of completing a sentence at Borstal. This is now used as exactly the same meaning but for people who have been and served in a youth detention center or a Young Offender Institution as Borstals were abolished in 1982.
  
• Cross: A small cross either on the forehead, finger or between the thumb and forefinger is sometimes seen on convicts as a symbol of serving time in prison.
  

Found these cool pdf files of Russian criminal tattoos CLICK HERE

That's a lot of good info. I just found this slideshow of criminal tattoos and their secret meanings here: http://likes.com/misc/prison-tattoos-and-their-secret-meanings?v=eyJjbGlja19pZCI6IDkwMzc5NDYxNSwgInBvc3RfaWQiOiAyNDY5MTg2MX0

Great info indeed.

That's exactly the kind of info I think would be awesome to have in a standalone offline app called Hero's Notes - an app containing all these kinds of infos that may be handy to have whereever you are - and preferably not dependent on an Internet connection (although an online version could also be made of course).

http://www.sectortools.com/?page=HerosNotes