Florida prisons filled with tattooed inmates. Death row's Wade Wilson another face in crowd
Prisons are filled with tattooed inmates. If there was any doubts about that fact, a 2017 Palm Beach Post analysis looking specifically at the tattoos on the bodies of criminals incarcerated in Florida confirmed it.
In Southwest Florida in recent weeks, it's been difficult to not notice the tattooed face of now convicted murderer Wade Wilson. The man who a jury found guilty of the 2019 murders of Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz, On June 25 jurors weighing the future of Wilson recommended the death penalty.
The Palm Beach Post analysis of prison records published seven years ago revealed some interesting facts and details about the prison culture, the crimes committed and the body art on almost 75,000 inmates. Here are some of the key takeaways from that analysis:
Three of four Florida inmates had at least one tattoo.
The state of Florida "painstakingly" logs every tattoo and its location, creating a telling record of an oft-overlooked population.
The single most common tattoo in Florida prisons was the cross, worn by more than 22,000 inmates. Another popular tattoo: skulls, at 15,000.
The most likely location for a tattoo for a Florida prisoner? The arms, by far, though the right arm had a slight edge over the left.
That’s not to say tattoos can’t be found on any other body part:
Richard Ward, who has racked up 18 theft-related convictions since 1987, covered his male appendage in candy cane stripes.
Fifty-nine inmates sported “Hello Kitty” tattoos — 15 of them were men.
What about face tattoos like convicted killer Wade Wilson has?
Teardrops etched into the skin beneath a prisoner's eye are tattoos commonly worn by murderers to tally their dead.
In the 2017 analysis, nearly 3,200 inmates had teardrop tattoos on their cheeks. About 270 of them were in for murder charges.
Robert Alvarez tattooed his face with nine symbols including teardrops and a cross, which he got while he was in prison between the time of his initial conviction in 2012 and the appellate ruling that won him a second trial stemming from the 2010 murders of two store clerks at a Greenacres Circle K.
What kind of tattoos were women in Florida prisons getting?
The analysis revealed the tattoos selected by women, who at the time made up about 7% of the state’s 99,600 inmates, often varied wildly from men. The most common tattoos among women prisoners were butterflies, hearts, roses and flowers.
What did gang tattoos look like in Florida prisons?
According to the Palm Beach Post story, it was difficult to pinpoint gang affiliation through tattoo records. The state recognizes more than 1,000 gangs (at the time). The Post found more than 8,000 tattoos in Florida prisons that explicitly referenced those gangs.
The most prevalent gang, according to the state in 2017, was the Aryan Brotherhood. Its members often mark themselves with swastikas, accounting for about 580 of the tattoos on the inmate list. Wade Wilson has a swastika tattoo on his face and one under his hair.
Tattoos that broadly include the words “gang,” “gangster” or “gangsta” are much more common, with more than 660 of them.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Florida prison tattoos: What are the most common tattoos?
