Sometimes a Teardrop Is Just a Teardrop
Once locked up, everyone looks the same in their prison uniform, so a tattoo can set an inmate apart from others. It can also help an incarcerated person feel in control over their own bodies when they have no other control otherwise.
“It's easy for society to otherprison tattoos or folks who are tattooed as scary,” Meghan Mitchell, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of North Dakota tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “But regardless of the reason for the tattoo, it does embody some resistance to the system and autonomy.”
TaLisa Carter, associate professor in the Department of Justice, Law & Criminology in the School of Public Affairs at American University and author of the upcoming book Corrections at Work, supervised male and female residents when she worked as a deputy corrections officer in Savannah, Ga. She tells A&E Crime + Investigation that prison tattoos become more common with those that are serving life without the possibility of parole because “one would need more control of their life when there's less hope for getting back out.”
“By being so punitive, we're increasing the number of prison tattoos,” she explains. “And then there's the deviant angle of it. It’s like, ‘I'm getting a tattoo in defiance of the system and defiance of authority and defiance of these rules.’”
While gang affiliation remains one reason why an incarcerated person gets a prison tattoo, it comes with risks.
“Getting a tattoo that's gang related is instantly going to flag you as a gang member,” Mitchell says. “In some prisons, that's not going to really change anything for your incarceration, but if you're affiliated with a gang that's identified as a security threat group at that prison—which changes depending on where you are in the country—that's going to immediately put you in solitary confinement or restrictive housing.”
Mitchel P. Roth, PhD, professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University and author of publications such as Power on the Inside, which looks at the historical development of prison gangs worldwide, notes that “less people are going the facial route” with gang-related prison tattoos these days. “If you're being investigated by law enforcement, one of the first things they do is they look at your tattoos,” he tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “You don't want to get anything resembling a tattoo that looks like a gang signifier, or you're gone on the streets.”
The infamous teardrop tattoo seems to have lost its meaning as a signifier of a violent crime committed or how many people someone has murdered. More often than not, the tear-drop represents sadness. “I've talked with a lot of folks with teardrops, but I've heard them say it's also a symbol of folks who have died that are close to you,” Mitchell says. “The teardrops resemble the permanent marks that they've left on your life and the sadness that you carry.”
Jorge Antonio Renaud, former national criminal justice director at Latino Justice who was incarcerated in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system, tells A&E Crime + Investigation that he "never knew a person who tattooed tear drops on their face for how many people they killed.”
“Anybody who tells you they know for sure is lying,” Renaud, who has been working as an advocate and writer since his 2008 release, says. “If you join a gang, you are very likely going to be required to tattoo— to wear a patch, that’s what it's called. The people in prison who join a gang are almost certainly going to have to be patched up with something or signifying that they're in the gang. They try to keep changing that to stay ahead of security. Prison politics being what they are, you could put the wrong tat on and get killed very quickly.”
Renaud received tattoos during his time in prison, but he chose to adorn his body with his name, a skull in honor of a brother who was an artist and the name of his daughter and her mom. “None of the tattoos I have represent prison,” he notes. “I didn't want that.”
How Prison Tattoo Works and What It Will Cost
Every prison has their tattoo artist, known as a TA. In order to get a tattoo, according to Renaud, you need to be in good standing among your fellow prisoners and subjected to questioning. “If you've been convicted of certain crimes, like sexual crimes, then they're not going to allow you to get tatted,” Renaud says. “But if you're a regular drug dealer, burglar or robber, they're going to be cool.”
Makeshift needles are generally formed from things like a spring from a lighter or a VCR and need to be sharpened and straightened using heat from a flame source. Tattoo guns can be made by removing the motor from a small handheld fan, something easily obtained from the commissary and that motor is enough to get a needle to move.
TAs produce their own ink by burning a piece of plastic and combining it with water and alcohol. There are two basic colors for prison tattoos: black or dark blue. Renaud says that if you see tattoos with other colors, that person likely has a good connection with a correction officer or someone on the outside. A lookout person—the trusted inmate who will be “holding jiggers,” prison slang for watching out for guards while another inmate engages in an activity that is against the rules—might whistle or cough should a correction officer be approaching while the TA works.
Tattoos can range in price from $20 to $200 or more depending on the size and the TA’s skill level. This could be paid for with bags of coffee, stamps or food, valuable commissary items or with illegal items from the outside like cigarettes or drugs. Another form of acceptable compensation could be having someone on the outside deliver payment to a person of the TA’s choosing.
All the Risks of Getting a Prison Tattoo
When an individual first arrives at a penitentiary, staff note the number of tattoos they have during an intake inspection, so they’ll know if more are added while under supervision. According to Renaud, someone caught receiving or giving a tattoo in prison may be put in solitary confinement or lose commissary privileges.
A needle or anything sharp should be seized by a correction officer. “Our goal is to retrieve these items so that people don't do this to themselves, to others, because of infection and all these other things,” Carter says. “The other side of that coin is that you think about how much we've deprived individuals of their humanity, and about autonomy of self. It's a really complicated social issue, but for a correctional officer, it's contraband.”
Renaud argues that the safety concerns are relatively low given that TAs typically use gloves and alcohol and may have access to antibacterial ointments. Still, Roth sees the risks. “It's a pretty unsanitary process,” he claims. “You're lucky if you don't get hepatitis B or C or HIV, as I'm sure they reuse a lot of these needles.”
Given the staffing crisis in prison facilities and the number of inmates each correction officer is responsible for, there’s only so much authorities can do when it comes to shutting down a tattooing operation. “If it's clear that somebody just got a tattoo, but I don't find anything [prohibited], as long as this person is not infected, nothing to be done,” Carter says. “As long as you're not creating more work for me, I'm leaving you alone. We're too overwhelmed for that.”
