Source: Vancouver Sun Contact: Pubdate: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 Section: A1 / Front Author: Margaret Munro 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.