foto 8
Texas Prison Tattoos
By  Andrew Lichtenstein.
Page 1.

alichtenstein@foto8.com



  Within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's expanding prison system tattoos are taken seriously by the inmates and their guards alike. Tattoos obtained while locked up in prison have special significance back on the streets. Texas convicts like other prisoners in the U.S. are racially divided but they share an affection for tattoos that identify home towns. Many of the gangs that are present in prisons across the nation have close regional geographic affiliations. A declaration of allegiance to one town or another can certainly provoke a gang fight and may cost an inmate his life.

.White inmates who are outnumbered and less gang-organized in the prison population find it more important to assert a racial solidarity than to declare a "home turf". Often they have tattoos of swastikas or crosses signalling membership to one of a dozen or so white supremacist groups.



prison tattoos gang sign



Next