Style: Gangster/Biker/Prison

The ultimate symbol for gang members are their gang tattoos, getting a permanent mark is a sign of showing total commitment to the gang. Gang tattoos can tell lots of things like, who you are/what gang you're in/ what your beliefs are(Mafia, racist etc..), what you have done, where you have been how many years you have been in jail(also referred to as "dead time") and even things like how many you have killed. Known symbols include teardrops under the eye as well as spider webs on the elbows to symbolize people killed.

As it gets easier to remove tattoos, these gang tattoos will lose some of their power. The style of the tattoos can vary in quality quite a bit, for example the Japanese Mafia also called the Yakuza use colorful large nice looking tattoos compared to western prison tattoos that have much smaller less sophisticated tattoos like handpicked or scratched pieces. Common themes for western jail tattoos include skulls, knifes, women, symbols representing crimes and death, often made within the prisons using crude techniques.

Example(s):