RUSSIAN CRIMINAL TATTOO POLICE FILES

These photographs of Russian prisoners tattoos were collected by Arkady Bronnikov from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s. A senior expert in criminalistics at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs for over thirty years, part of his duties involved visiting correctional institutions of the Ural and Siberia regions. It was here that he interviewed, gathered information and took photographs of convict s and their tattoos, building one of the most comprehensive archives of this phenomenon.