Manner of death in individuals with expletive tattoos.

In previous years individuals with tattoos were thought to have a higher rate of mental illness and risk taking behaviour. With the widespread adoption of tattoos in Western countries in recent years this negative association has been questioned. An issue which arises, however, is that "tattooing" is a heterogeneous activity that covers a wide spectrum of designs and motivations. To examine the characteristics of individuals presenting to medicolegal autopsy with "expletive tattoos" 19 individuals with tattoos that contained selected obscene words were compared to controls. Fifteen cases (79%) were found where deaths were classified as unnatural - 7 drug/alcohol related, 5 suicides, 2 accidents and 1 homicide. The decedents had an age range of 21-58 years, mean 39.7 years, with a male to female ratio of 14:1. Compared to controls there was a significantly increased number of unnatural deaths in the group with expletive tattoos (p < 0.01), with a tendency to involve males. This study has shown that expletive tattoos in a forensic context may be associated with unnatural and violent deaths, and that the study of particular subgroups of tattooed individuals may be useful in discerning specific trends that are unclear if "tattoos" are treated as a homogeneous phenomenon.