Pistol Tattoo

Prison tattooing is the practice of creating and displaying tattoos in a prison environment. They are often used to portray gang membership, prison status, family bonds, spiritual beliefs and are often used as a form of code and have hidden meanings. Tattooing is forbidden in most prisons and therefore is done in secret, with makeshift tattoo equipment. Within the expanding prison system, tattoos are taken seriously by the inmates and their guards alike. Tattoos obtained while locked up in prison have special significance both to the prisoners themselves as well as back on the streets.

Methods of Tattooing in Prison

There are two standard type of prison tattoo pistols, the spinner and the relay. The relay pistol is much better than the spinner rig-up and is now more widely used. An inmate breaks down his most prized possession, a radio, and removes the transistor. The thin copper wire is then removed which is wrapped around a screw which provides an automatic relay when powered up. The inmate must then somehow acquire bristles from a wire brush from maintenance, and sharpen them to provide the needle. The cylinder is made from a quality mechanical pencil and the armature bar is made with a piece of flexible pallet band and dime size magnet. The tattoo gun is then powered by the transistor of another radio. So owning one of these tattoo "pistols" is quite costly and in prison, "money" can be hard to come by.