Russian prison tattoos

The Russian prison population is one of the largest in the world. From the mid-1960's to the 1980's, thirty-five million people were incarcerated, and of those, twenty to thirty million were tattooed. The tattoos display inmates' contempt for official justice and retribution-- phrases and images directly mock the political system and the absence of any possibility for "reform" within the jails. "For a convict, prison is a crime college," reads one typical statement. Convicted female gang members sometimes prefer the simple declaration, "People are wild animals." Images chosen by the prisoners borrow from popular art and the rich tradition of Russian icon painting. Churches, kittens, images of saints or the Madonna and Christ, portraits of Russian political leaders and Soviet architecture, death's heads and barbed wire are transmuted into a clandestine social and political language that can be decoded by fellow inmates and by ex- cons outside of the prison walls. For more infos, read this remarkable book.