The strange thing about Mexican prison art tattoos is you get them before you go to prison. More often than not an individual gets tattooed as soon as he joins a gang, and before he goes on his first ''mission''.
As his criminal career expands, he gets further tattoos commensurate with his status in the gang. These tattoos have a sub-cultural language that is all their own, featuring unique inscriptions alien to all but the initiated... and law enforcement agencies.