Yakuza: Beautiful hand-painted vintage portraits of tattooed Japanese gangsters|Dangerous Minds
http://dangerousminds.net/...za_beautiful_hand-painted_vintage_portraits_of_tattooed_japanese_gangst

The coded world of Russian prison tattoos
http://mashable.com/2014/10/29/russian-prison-tattoos/#RE.3HxL6akqs

RAPHAEL_KOSMOS: se podivam... ve veverkovy-.-

text on the stomach reads ‘man is wolf to man’. text across the arms reads ‘live in sin, die laughing’. a pirate with a knife in his teeth is often accompanied by the acronym ‘ira’ (a russian female name) written on the knife, which stands for idu rezat aktiv (I’m off to kill the activists). worn by otritsaly (prisoners who refuse to submit to the prison rules) it denotes an inclination to brutality, sadism, and a negative attitude towards activists – prisoners who openly collaborate with prison authorities.

text on the bearers right arm reads: ‘the court only deprived me of freedom, but nobody deprived me of human feelings. and the years go by, and my temples have gone grey, and my youth has been damaged.’ the bell tolls [meaning he is serving his time ‘to the bell’ – the full sentence with no remission]. the manacle on the wrist indicates a prison term of more than five years (if they tattooed on both wrists, more than ten years). if the manacle is ‘broken’ it means the prisoner is an escapee. text on the bearers left arm reads: ‘comrades, think of me every now and then. when the law sentenced me, in desolate camps of the taiga, I lived under the name of ‘prisoner’.’