The relationship of tattoos to antisocial personality disorder would seem obvious. However, as we live in politically correct times, nothing can be taken for granted any more. Knee-jerk responses like this one need to be hypothesized and then studied under conditions of clinical accuracy.
Preliminary results seem to confirm what we all thought anyway; forensic psychiatric inpatients are more likely to have tattoos.
No kidding.
They are likely to have a higher percentage of overall body area tattooed. They are also more likely to have histories of sexual and substance abuse and suicide attempts than non-tattooed offenders.
So why do they get more tattoos? What are they trying to do? Externalize? Internalize? Keep themselves safe from demons the rest of us can't see?
Are they just crazy or do they know something the rest of us don't?
The oldest known tattoos date back 5000 years to a male found frozen in the Alps in 1991.
He was very, very dead.
The latest tattoo in human history is the one that is about to be drilled into the stretched out skin on my back.
And me? I'm as good as dead anyway...
The needle pierces my skin at 3000 jabs a minute. What's that per second? 50 times?
My math's not bad.
How likely am I now to take drugs, sexually abuse and engage in suicidal anti-social behavior?
Answer; very, very much indeed.’
What would you do to save your family?
You probably don't even want to know.
Neither did Dennis Small, but he sure as hell was going to find out.