Body behind Bars

Jack London once said, "Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past." Although tattoos have experienced a renaissance in society and overcome the stigma associated with it for a long time, it has spread across the social spectrum, economic classes, age cohorts and social status, there still are environments in which tattooing is an identifying transformation, a sign that identifies and serves as an important tool of nonverbal communication. It is primarily the environment of a total institution such as prison. Body behind Bars presents the results of ethnographic research carried out by the author in Czech men's prisons since 2013 through various body modifications of convicts serving a prison term. The author focuses on tattoos, their specific symbolism through various techniques of execution, explains the specifics of bodily modifications in the prison environment on the basis of varying aspects of the transforming pre-prison identity of convicts into a prison identity. The publication is supplemented by excerpts from interviews conducted by the author with over a hundred convicts and seventy members of prison staff, the results of more than two hundred hours of observation inside prisons, including authentic photographs of tattoos taken by her.