Deviance Article

A professor at Texas Tech University, Jerome R. Koch, has been doing a new study suggesting that people who have multiple tattoos or body piercings are more likely to engage in risky and criminal behavior. His research shows that people who have four or more tattoos, seven or more body piercings, or one intimate piercing, which I think is totally not okay or necessary, are more likely to be arrested, drink, have sex with multiple partners, use illegal drugs, or other illegal substances. It also says that in his, Jerome R. Koch, research he surveyed a total of 1753 American college students. He asked them all the same questions about how much body art they have and where do they all have piercings.

After surveying all of the college students, he found out that there was a positive outcome to his study and that students with multiple tattoos, like “sleeves,” and students with multiple piercing or intimate piercings had an overall higher incidence of social deviance. These students were more commonly reported to having been arrested, doing an illegal drugs other than marijuana, or had multiple sex partners within the last year. Koch’s research shows that only fifty -five percent of the college students that were surveyed had piercings, were tattooed, or have multiple of each. The author of the article ends by stating how years ago people who had tattoos were part of a subculture. But today tattoos are becoming more common and they are being used to help people feel different.