In the 1980s, awaiting my trial in jail, I underwent a rite of passage among many prisoners. I got a tattoo from an incarcerated artist using an improvised tattoo gun made from the motor of a cassette player, a pen barrel, a bent spoon and a needle. The makeshift device was held together by thread; the ink was derived from soot and baby oil.
Illicit tattooing is verboten in all prison systems. In Tennessee, where I’m currently incarcerated, homemade tat guns are considered contraband and receiving a tattoo can result in a disciplinary report for what the department of corrections calls “mutilation.”
But some corrections officials in the U.S. and other countries have recognized that prisoners will continue to get inked regardless of the rules. They understand it’s better to have established prison tattoo programs to reduce the spread of dangerous diseases. (I didn’t contract one of these after my experience.)
Some research has shown that about 70% of prisoners have one or more tattoos — and based on my own observations that estimate seems low. Perhaps not coincidentally, research has shown that the rates of hepatitis C and HIV are nine and three times higher in prison than the outside population, respectively.
But what if prisoners could receive tattoos through programs that were regulated and sanitary, and provided valuable vocational training?
Many corrections systems already offer vocational courses for barbering and cosmetology, which allow prisoners to provide those services to other prisoners while they work toward their state licenses. Establishing programs for tattoo artists could follow the same model, with instructors teaching the craft as well as hygienic tattooing practices. In fact, at least three states have already developed tattoo programs.
At the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Delaware, a tattoo artist career pathway program provides people with marketable job skills they can use to obtain post-release employment. Prisoners who receive tats must pay for them, and the revenue is split between the artist and the program, which is self-funded.
Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater started a licensed tattoo shop in 2024 with an outside business owner who teaches sanitary practices and inking techniques. People who participate must have a clean disciplinary record for six months, and tattoos that include nudity or gang or hate symbols are prohibited. Prisoners pay $25 per session to get inked.
And at Missouri’s Western Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, a guard who was formerly a tattoo artist oversees a program that provides prisoners with a 300-hour course in tattooing and health- and hygiene-related topics. Graduates receive licenses from the state’s Division of Professional Registration, and prisoners pay an hourly rate to receive tattoos.
These examples indicate that approved prison tattoo programs could be implemented on a broader scale. There’s also a financial incentive for prison systems to reduce medical costs.
The Minnesota prison system spent more than $1.5 million over a nine-month period treating hepatitis C several years ago, according to Prison Legal News. In the years since starting the tattoo program, Minnesota prisons have seen a decrease in hepatitis C cases. (That decrease cannot be attributed directly to the tattoo shop, according to an emailed statement from Aaron Swanum, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. Swanum did add that violations for illegal tattooing have dropped since the tattoo shop opened at the prison.)
Corrections officials may balk at providing prisoners with the ability to get tattoos based on catchall “security concerns.” But prison systems throughout the country already offer a variety of vocational courses — including trades that involve power tools or sharp objects, such as carpentry and barbering.
Lawmakers might object to the idea of using state funds to provide tattoos to people convicted of crimes. But, as the model in Delaware shows, these programs can operate without public funds. It’s also easy enough to regulate the tattooed subject matter.
Whether prison systems allow tattoos or not, people are still going to get them. And getting illicit tattoos will always be less safe than through approved and regulated programs. We can provide people with job training while keeping everyone safer. Tattoos, which were once largely associated with convicts, have lost their stigma and are now widely accepted and displayed. Let’s do the same and remove the stigma surrounding prison tattoo practices, too.
