Once upon a time when Ivan the Terrible ruled in Russia, criminals were either executed or got their foreheads brandmarked and set free. Russia had no prisons in those days. This treatment of criminals was efficient because everyone could at first glance tell not only criminals as such, but also learn what crimes they had committed, because the particular crime - murder, highway robbery, rape, arson, horse theft, religious heresy etc. - was denoted with the specific letter of Russian alphabet brandmarked on the criminal's forehead. Some criminals were caught and branded several times - the practice to which this old Russian proverb refers: "На нём уже негде клеймо ставить" - "He has no place left free to brand him again", i.e. "He is an arrant rascal".
To be successful, crime must be very well organized nowadays. Therefore it is more important to brandmark not the crimes (which are obvious), but who the criminal's "godfathers" are. This would warn everyone against the whole bunch:
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