Video: The Role Tattoos Play In Law Enforcement Investigation

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – For many people, a tattoo is a form of expression but for law enforcement, a tattoo can be an avenue to a person’s identity.

Identifying a suspect or a victim’s body is no easy task.

“Depending on the circumstances, it can be extremely difficult when you find the body to figure out who that person is. Weather conditions, where the body was left, will play a heavy role in what sort of evidence is remaining,” said Winston County Sheriff Jason Pugh.

Pugh says for his department, tattoos are one of the most important identifiers.

“Everybody that’s booked into our correctional facility, a list is made of the tattoos of that person at the time of the arrest. Some of these folks are arrested several different times over the course of their lives. So, if we find that tattoo on a person and we believe it may be this person then we can look back and see if that person had that particular tattoo, on the body at that particular time,” says Pugh.

Since no crime scene is the same, law enforcement must work fast if the tattoo is going to be of any use to an investigation, just ask Columbus Forensic Lab Director Austin Shepherd.

“Basically tattoos will typically survive on the skin as long as the skin survives. In hot humid environments, like in Mississippi and Alabama, the deep south. Decomposition rates, especially in the summer, are really high, really fast. Someone could completely decompose in a few days sometimes it may take up to a couple of weeks. Of course once the skins gone the tattoos gone,” says Shepherd.

Pugh says finger prints and DNA are still widely used in investigations but a tattoo is like a picture, it says a thousand words.

“If the officers know how to read it, it can be a road map basically of that person’s life so you can learn a lot about them,” says Pugh.

Pugh goes on to say, it can be determined, whether a person’s a part of:  subcultures, networks of gangs, and hate groups all from a tattoo.