TORIES ARE PLAYING POLITICS WITH LIVES

Someone Once Said, "You Can't Blame a Politician for Playing Politics."

True as that may be, it's disappointing to see a government embrace
political expediency at the expense of common sense.

Witness, for instance, the federal government's recent decision to
axe a pilot program that provided sanitary tattooing to prisoners.

The program was cancelled before it could prove whether it was
effective in preventing the spread of disease, according to the head
of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Dr. David Butler-Jones said the year given the project is not long
enough to conclusively show whether such a program would affect rates
of HIV, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases among prisoners.

No doubt, Butler-Jones is correct about that.

What's even more troubling is the fact that cancelling the program
may endanger the public, as former prisoners spread disease to
society at large when, after being released, they come in contact
with loved ones outside prison walls (95 per cent of prisoners are
eventually released).

Diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis C are spread in prisons when
inmates share dirty needles used for drugs or tattoos, or engage in
sexual activities.

If the federal government really wanted to minimize the spread of
disease, it would not only continue with the tattoo program, but also
distribute condoms inside prisons.

Of course, distributing prophylactics wouldn't be popular with people
who think prisoners already have life too easy, but it would help
reduce the spread of disease.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (a former MLA for Red Deer
North) describes the $600,000 prison tattoo program as a waste of
taxpayers' dollars.

"Our government will not spend taxpayers' money on providing tattoos
for convicted criminals," he said.

Does Day not realize there is a huge financial and human cost
associated with AIDS and hepatitis?

According to the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, it costs about
$20,000 a year to treat someone with HIV.

Day's government has apparently cynically decided that the political
gain it would realize by appearing to be tough on crime is more
important than preventing people inside and outside of prison from
getting sick. Plus, by eliminating the program, the Tories could kill
an initiative started by their Liberal opponents -- thereby
preventing the Grits from benefitting politically if the program
proved successful down the road.

According to a national survey, 45 per cent of prisoners get tattoos
and 17 per cent have body piercing -- often using dirty needles.

Those statistics become especially important when one considers
inmates are up to 10 times more likely to contract HIV than the
Canadian population and 30 times more likely to get hepatitis C.

Unfortunately, without a safe tattoo program, inmates end up using
potentially dangerous homemade equipment.

Before the tattoo program was introduced at one institution,
prisoners inked one another with a guitar string threaded through a
Bic pen, attached to a cassette Walkman motor. In contrast, the pilot
program trained an inmate to provide sterile tattoos to fellow
prisoners under staff supervision at six institutions.

It would have helped make prisons safer not only for inmates, but
also for staff.

Wouldn't a guard bitten by an inmate feel a little better about the
situation if he knew prisoners at his institution had a low incidence
of AIDS and hepatitis?

Surprisingly, when the program was initially launched, the union
representing Canadian correctional officers inexplicably spoke out
against it. Union representatives argued that inmates would get
tattoo needles and use them as weapons.

Now, as AIDS?and hepatitis spreads through Canadian prisons, infected
inmates can use their blood as a weapon in fights with guards.

Is the guards' union happy about that?

Remarkably, the Public Health Agency of Canada (the federal agency
charged with tracking and preventing illness) wasn't even consulted
by the Tories before they killed the program.

How dumb is that?

It's nothing less than dangerous when politicians cancel programs
designed to prevent the spread of disease without consulting health
care professionals.

Who knows more about preventing disease -- politicians or doctors and nurses?

Cancelling the tattoo program is shortsighted and inhumane.

Denying inmates access to sterile tattooing equipment may even
violate prisoners' human rights.

It's time the feds read the writing on the wall and reversed their
decision to cancel the program.