Legal and Criminological Psychology (2000), 5, 153–164 Printed in Great Britain Ó 2000 The British Psychological Society Children’s and adolescents’ stereotypes of tattooed people as delinquent Kevin Durkin* and Stephen Houghton University of Western Australia, Australia Purpose. Tattoos traditionally have been associated with criminality. This study investigates the possibility that children and adolescents may be more likely to associate tattooed than non-tattooed individuals with delinquent attributes. Method. Children aged 6 to 16 years were presented with a series of illustrations of three men (one of whom was tattooed), and in each case were requested to decide which individual best tted a negative (delinquent), positive (prosocial) or neutral description. Results. Participants revealed a strong bias to associate the tattooed individuals with the negative attributes, but little tendency to associate them with the positive or neutral attributes. There was some evidence of an increase in the bias during middle childhood. Conclusions. Children appear to acquire by at least age 6 strong negative stereotypes of persons with tattoos. This has implications for children’s perform- ance as witnesses in certain contexts; it also indicates that young people electing to obtain tattoos are aware of the criminal stigma attached to this form of body marking. This study investigates children’s and adolescents’ stereotypes of people with tattoos: in particular the association of tattoos with antisocial and delinquent behaviour. There are several reasons why the topic is of interest to legal and criminological psychologists, relating to the biasing inuence of stereotypes on social and legal judgments and to the developmental context within which some young people elect to obtain tattoos, thereby placing themselves at risk of being stigmatized as delinquent. The presence of tattoos on a person’s body has long been associated with images of criminality (Hamburger & Lacovara, 1963; Newman, 1982; Sperry, 1991; Steward, 1990). Clearly, there is more than a kernel of truth in this particular stereotype, as higher incidences of tattoos are reported among criminal and psychiatrically disturbed populations (Buhrich & Morris, 1982; Doll, 1988; Farrow, Schwartz, & Vanderleeuw, 1991; Loimer & Werner, 1992), but many non-criminal *Requests for reprints should be addressed to Professor Kevin Durkin, Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia 6907, Australia (e-mail: kevin@psy.uwa.edu.au). 153