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A comment on Russia's leading expert on criminal tattoos. Parent comment

Re:Russia's leading expert on criminal tattoos by rdtsc on Thursday December 24, 2015 @05:09PM (#10789721)
The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became more formalized, by now has about 100 years of tradition behind it.

In US I would imagine, for example, tattoos would be more gang centered and would have meaning within one gang, but not a general unified set of symbols or meanings that everyone accepts. Like say "cross on the left shoulder means abandoned by parents" or something like that.

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Re:Russia's leading expert on criminal tattoos by trhway on Thursday December 24, 2015 @06:48PM (#10789949)
>The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became more formalized

in particular many tattoos serve the role similar to military insignia and one just isn't allowed (i.e. would be punished severely) to wear symbols or the number of it which doesn't match his/her position in the hierarchy (which is pretty firmly enforced multi-level developed one in the Russian prisons) or his/her history like number of prison terms served and severity of the crimes committed.

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