ABSTRACT

Tattoos are to many perhaps a seemingly new fashion and their presence can be felt throughoutour modern-day society in great volumes. Although it might seem like tattoos are a newfashion, the case is pretty far from it. Tattoos have a long motley history that can be traced backto around 5000 years ago. Today, our capital Stockholm is considered to be one of the densestplaces in the world concerning tattoos. However, if we turn back the clock to around 100 yearsago, we can see a different situation, where tattoos only were to be found on sailors, railwayworkers, soldiers, criminals and prostitutes according to contemporary researchers. A type ofstigma that still can be felt today, even though tattoos are worn by all types of people. Eventhough the contemporary researchers are probably to be believed, there is no statisticalevidence that the fact is actually so. With this essay, we will bring forth such statistical evidencethrough a study based on a register of released prisoners that can be found in the NationalArchives. The aim of the study is to find out how many of the released prisoners that actuallywere tattooed, what tattoos they wore, where they lived and what their profession was.