Tattoo service urged to curb convict diseases

The Correctional Service of Canada is considering allowing tattoo artists
in prisons in a bid to curb the spread of disease among convicts.

The federal department is also exploring the idea of giving prisoners clean
syringes so they can safely inject the illegal drugs being smuggled into
federal prisons.

And it is expected to announce that convicts hooked on heroin will be
allowed to undergo methadone treatment for their addiction while in prison.

``Correctional Services of Canada has no methadone treatment , but is
seriously examining the issue and we expect to make an announcement soon,''
Judy Portman, the federal department's HIV/AIDS coordinator, told the 10th
Annual B.C. HIV/AIDS Conference on Tuesday.

The department has been under pressure from AIDS activists and doctors for
years to be much more proactive at curbing the spread of HIV and
hepatitisC in federal prisons.

While the activists were encouraged by Portman's promises and comments
about tattoos, syringes, and methadone, they said ``it's too little and too
slow.''

They say illegal injection drug use and illicit tattooing, which includes
the use of both dirty needles and ink, are a fact of life in Canadian prisons.

The department has a ``moral and legal responsibility'' to deal with the
epidemic of infectious disease in the prisons in a more urgent way, Ralf
Jurgens of the Canadian HIV/AIDS legal network told the conference.

At least one per cent of the 13,000 federal prisoners are believed to be
infected with HIV, a rate 10 times that of the general Canadian population.
More than 30 per cent are infected with hepatitisC, a virus that can
destroy the liver.

It's been welldocumented that sharing dirty syringes spreads HIV. And
tattooing with dirty needles has been linked to the spread of hepatitisC,
which is carried in the blood.

There is also concern that tattooing, which involves putting tiny bits of
ink beneath the skin, can spread HIV.

Several delegates at the conference, including Dr. Peter Ford of Ontario's
Kingston General Hospital, who treats convicts in several federal prisons,
noted that the viruses are carried out of prisons when the offenders are
released and therefore pose a very real public threat.

``It's a public health disaster,'' said Ford, who'd like to see
correctional services moving much faster to contain the diseases. ``I think
the delay is absolutely unconscionable.''

Ford showed conference delegates a film that featured several graphically
tattooed prisoners at the Joyceville Prison near Kingston. It focused on
how the policy forbidding tattooing exacerbates the spread of disease.

Because of the ban on tattooing convicts hoard needles and ink and share
contaminated equipment they squirrel away in their cells.

Ford has twice proposed that the correctional service allow prisoners to
start a tattooing program that would ensure use of sterile ink and needles.

Portman said the department is aware of the tattooing problems and is
actively discussing the possibility of starting a prisoneroperated tattoo
service.

The department, she said, will also be consulting further with Ford, who
has plenty of horror stories on unhygenic activities in federal prisons.

Ford said in an interview that drugusing prisoners at the Collins Bay
prison in Ontario have told him there are three or four syringes stashed
away in the prison and used by hundreds of convicts. He also said he's been
been told by convicts that it's easier to get illegal drugs in prison than
on the street.

A survey of 4,875 convicts, conducted across the country in 1996, found
that 11 per cent of prisoners had used illegal drugs behind bars, six per
cent had had sex, 45 per cent had been tattooed, and 17 per cent had had
their bodies pierced.