The beaver is a proud and noble animal

Canadian prison inmate Mark Hewitt was two years into an eight-year sentence for various property offenses when he sat for a “dirty tattoo” session that left him with a black scorpion on his forearm and hepatitis C in his bloodstream.

As Hewitt nears his March 2006 release date, he finds himself on the other side of the needle. Hewitt is one of two tattoo artists in Ontario's Bath Institution who have been professionally trained in tattoo-shop maintenance and disease prevention as part of a tattoo pilot project operated by Correctional Service Canada.

The agency has opened six tattooing sites in prisons of all security levels across Canada as part of a measure to prevent the spread of blood-borne diseases in the prison population, where the incidence of HIV is 10 times higher than in the general population, and the rate of hepatitis C is nearly 30 times higher.

Hewitt, who has acquired 10 illicit tattoos during his time in prison, says the prospect of safe tattooing is drawing a positive response.

“People are actually waiting to get the tattoos,” said Hewitt in a phone interview with Courttv.com. “Usually, when guys want something, they don't wait around to get it, but here, they're waiting a month for a session.”

At Bath Institution, 35 inmates have sat for a two-hour session with Hewitt or his colleague, resulting in 28 new tattoos and 12 cover-ups of previous tattoos, all sanctioned by the Canadian government.

Rick Evans, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder at Bath Institution, has had three sessions so far in an effort to fill in the black lines etched all over his body with colors, an option he was not able to consider with illicit tattooing.

“This way, you can relax knowing that the artist is working with clean equipment and you won't get in trouble for having it done,” said Evans, who also contacted hepatitis C in a “dirty tattoo” session in 2000.

“In prison, tattoos are a way to align yourself with the subculture … You can't stop it from happening. You can only try to control it,” said Evans, who was among a group of inmates to push for safe-tattooing initiatives in order to reduce the rate of infection.

The inmates pay $5 a session for the work, which also includes ointments and bandages for post-session care. The Bath Institution inmates get approval for their designs from Dave Carmody, coordinator for the Bath Institution tattoo pilot project.

“The whole purpose behind their time here is re-integration into society,” said Carmody, explaining why hate symbols or designs above the neck, below the ankles or on hands are unacceptable.

“If they're walking around with tears tattooed near their eye, that makes them pretty identifiable as an offender the average person is not walking around with tears tattooed in his eyes,” he said.

Carmody rejected the suggestion that inmates may try to steal equipment from the tattoo shop. “There's always the risk that guards will find needles in the cells, but now that they see how secure the site is and that nothing is leaving the shop, there has not been opposition,” he said.

Correctional Service Canada also disputes the claim from opponents of the project that the project, which cost about $700,000 to start, puts pressure on taxpayers to fund inmates' tattoos.

“The Center for Disease Control invests 10 times as much as the pilot program costs to treat offenders affected by HIV and hepatitis C,” said Mich? Pilon-Santilli, spokesperson for Correctional Service Canada. “For us, it is a public health issue.”

Though the program is still in an experimental phase and its ongoing progress is contingent upon a review in March 2006, for people like Hewitt, the program offers inmates a chance to learn a new trade.

“It's a good-paying job on the outside,” said Hewitt, who makes $5 a day as a prison tattoo artist. “It's getting so popular, there's going to be a lot of business.”

Source: http://www.courttv.com/people/2005/1122/prisontattoos_ctv.html