Okay, let me state up front that I know absolutely nothing about gangs. I do know a little about tatoos, however.
For a couple of years I made my living as a freelance writer. One article I worked on was on the significance of tatooing in modern culture. In the course of my research I spent too many evenings in the basements of Harley shops with men named Pig
. I also spent a good bit of time in the chair -- some artists are, with good reason, skeptical of writers . . . they won't talk to you unless you're willing to get some ink under your skin. I saw a lot of tatoos. I talked to a lot of people, especially people who won't chat unless they see you have ink, too. These are just my observations.
Prison and gang tattooing tends to be homemade. They use anything from hairdryer motors to tape recorder motors to drive the needle. The inks tend to be cigarette ash, ball point pen ink, shoe polish, or any sufficiently dark, soluble substance.
Sometimes the tatoos are done with a sewing needle and ink-coated thread. These are readily identifiable by their perforated "stitched" appearance.
Prison and gang tatoos tend to be single-color, but not the dark black of professional line work or tribal tatoos. They generally appear blueish with thick lines and very little detail. Frequently they depict religious symbols (most often Latino gangs), oriental caligraphy (chinese tongs or asian gangs), indeciperable dots and dashes (I've seen them but don't know what they mean; generally on Latinos) and just plain scary stuff -- skulls, knives, bad porn, etc. The real giveaway is the blue color of the ink, the bad artwork and the thick lines with no shading or artistic touches. There's also some scarring involved, depending on the skill of the "artist."
African americans don't tatoo well due to the darkness of the skin. But a good tattoo on black skin (like a
good tatoo on any skin) is not, in my opinion, a gang symbol. They've found a pro who can make a good tatoo work for them. The black gangs, as far as I can tell, go in for scarification or branding. Both leave raised welts and are pretty obvious.
For further info, check out Clinton Sanders' "Cusomizing the Body, the Art and Culture of Tatooing."
Chad