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."