Ok, there’s always one thing that goes with doing time, and that’s tattoos. Not everyone who goes to prison gets tattoos, but for some reason it happens a lot. Maybe it’s because misery loves company. Maybe it’s for the reminder not to come back. For whatever reason, they seem to be popular. I don’t have samples of any prison tattoos to share with you but maybe it’s a good thing because I’ve seen some god awful ones.

I thought I’d share a picture I have of a prison tattoo gun. You should see it here. The power supply is two (2) AA cell batteries wrapped in a piece of tape and a rubber band holding the wires on it. The wires came from a pair of headphones.

The tattoo gun is made from a motor that comes out of a tape player or walkman cassette player. They also used a bic writing pen as a barrel and tip. The tattoo needle is made from a guitar string. And they work just fine. In the hands of a good tattooist they do some amazing tattoos. In the hands of others, it’s a disaster.

If these prisoners would have used this kind of ingenuity before they came to prison, I think they would have never gone to prison.

I will be sharing other things of invention that the prisoners made later, and there are quite a few. But for now, enjoy seeing the tattoo gun.

One Response to “Tattoos”