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For a former gang member, old tattoos can send a message to mainstream society: I am not one of you.

They’re an obstacle to employment, but also to new lives with family and community members who may be put off by the sinister-looking imagery.

Enter Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention organization in Los Angeles that is said to operate the world’s largest gang-tattoo removal operation.

The charity was started in the late 1980s by the Rev. Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest who became dismayed by the all too frequent deaths of young people caught up in gang violence in his Boyle Heights parish.