Pubdate: Thu, 24 Nov 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Clifford Krauss
Cited: Correctional Services of Canada http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/
Cited: Union of Canadian Correctional Officers http://www.uccosacc.csn.qc.ca/
Cited: American Correctional Association http://www.aca.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

A PRISON MAKES THE ILLICIT AND DANGEROUS LEGAL AND SAFE

BATH, Ontario - The Bath Institution is a long way from Alcatraz.

It is a medium-security federal prison, and its inmates are allowed 
to keep the keys to their cells. Many have their own kitchens, and 
they move freely from the gym to the cabinet-making shop. Drug 
addicts can clean their needles with bleach, and condoms are readily available.

Now the institution has opened a tattoo parlor, and Mark Hewitt, a 
37-year-old inmate in jail for breaking into factories, couldn't be happier.

"You're excluded from society, so the way to fit in here is to get a 
tattoo, to blend in and be one of the crew, to be safer," said Mr. 
Hewitt, who for years had been clandestinely puncturing prisoner 
biceps with sewing needles, guitar strings and homemade ink sometimes 
made from burnt polystyrene.

While he says he has always been careful, such practices have 
contributed to an epidemic of hepatitis C and H.I.V. in prisons in 
Canada and around the world. Now Mr. Hewitt has been trained by the 
government to take his art form out of the dark and seamy corners of 
the jail and into a sterile-looking cinder-block room that looks 
almost like a dental clinic.

Mr. Hewitt's parlor is part of a pilot project by the Correctional 
Services of Canada that began in August and now includes five federal 
prisons across Canada. A sixth, in a woman's prison, is scheduled to 
open this month. More than 120 inmates have already taken part, 
paying about $5 per two-hour session.

Officials here and in the United States say they believe that the 
pilot project is the first of its kind in the world, another step in 
a trend of harm-reduction techniques spreading to one degree or 
another in prisons in many countries. The pilot program, expected to 
continue through at least 2007, is expected to cost the government 
roughly $100,000 per prison.

Tattooing has traditionally been banned in prisons because tattoos 
are often used to identify inmates with gangs and hate groups. But 
inmates have managed to get around the bans; 45 percent of Canadian 
inmates acquire a tattoo while in prison, according to government 
statistics. That rate has held steady over the last decade despite 
the widespread knowledge that diseases are spread through reused 
tattoo needles and ink.

"You don't want your prisons acting as a pool of infection for the 
general population," said Joanne Barton, a senior health officer 
working on the program. "The prevalence of H.I.V. is 7 to 10 times 
higher in federal penitentiaries than in the general Canadian 
population, and for hepatitis C the prevalence is 30 times higher."

Ms. Barton stressed that tattoos connected with hate groups and gangs 
were prohibited, along with tattoos on the face, neck and genitals. 
While she acknowledged that illicit tattooing would continue, she 
said at least now prisons in the pilot project were distributing 
information on safer techniques.

But the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers strongly opposes the 
pilot as a potential danger to its members.

"This program is doomed for failure," said Sylvain Martel, the 
union's national president. "Needles will be used against corrections 
officers."

Mr. Martel also said "we already have evidence" that inmates are 
stealing needles, ink and other paraphernalia from the parlors to be 
used in illicit tattooing. Prison supervisors say that they have no 
knowledge of that, adding that there is a careful inventory before 
and after tattooing sessions.

Whether legal or not, tattooing is not going to disappear from 
prisons. Tattoos serve many functions, aside from gang 
identification. Inmates typically make their bodies a collage of 
their life, complete with pictures or representations of loved ones 
and important events like funerals they cannot attend. To understand 
the importance of tattoos here, one only has to look at Tracy Rivet's body.

On his right arm is a tattoo displaying a decaying skull with hair 
flowing out of its mouth. On his chest there is a Christian cross 
that commemorates his deceased father. And on his left arm there is a 
wizard and a skull that cover up another tattoo of the name of his 
former wife. Now he is getting his entire back tattooed with a giant 
eagle, a symbol of freedom.

Like many convicts with tattoos, Mr. Rivet has hepatitis C, a 
debilitating chronic infectious disease that costs the Canadian 
government more than $20,000 a year per inmate to treat.

"I always let doctors, nurses and females know about my disease," 
said Mr. Rivet, who is serving a five-year sentence for first-degree 
manslaughter, after killing two people while driving drunk. "But only 
about 50 percent of the inmates are careful," he added, referring to 
sharing tattoo needles and reusing homemade ink.

The Canadian experiment is being watched closely by other prison 
systems looking for ways to control infections. It may work best in 
prisons like Bath, where inmates say gangs do not have a significant 
presence. Other Canadian prisons where tattoo programs are being 
tested, in Quebec and the Prairie provinces, have larger gang problems.

The corrections department in the Spanish province of Catalonia has 
reviewed the guidelines used in the Canadian program as it prepares 
to open its own pilot program. One corrections department in 
Australia has also considered starting a pilot, and the idea could 
eventually migrate south of the border.

"If there was a way to demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the 
risks," said Joey Weedon, director of governmental affairs of the 
American Correctional Association, "it's certainly a model that 
correctional administrators in the United States would look at and 
possibly attempt to copy." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake