With the headlines this week heavy with some major tattoo news, I’m left with little room for mocking others, as is required for online newsiness. But before we start, please allow this one digression: Nelly Furtado is an idiot.

Thank you, now here we go:

Oklahoma Lifts Tattoo Ban

The big news this week is that Oklahoma’s tattoo ban – the last state-wide ban in the US – has been lifted and now Okies can make body art blunders that they’ll regret legally like the rest of us. I kid. Removing the ban is a good thing. Some people complain that, in legalizing tattoos, the mystique behind the art is lost, yet I just don’t see how some scratcher at your kitchen table scarring your arm holds any charm. Call me fascist but I like health and safety laws.

That said, the new Oklahoma law does have some major cons to accompany its pros, as I wrote in Needled. One major obstacle to artists wanting to open up shop is the hefty $100,000 surety bond that must be paid along with the thousand dollar licensing fee. This may not stand, though. One artist is challenging this bond on constitutional grounds claiming “as a small businessman the state is his employer and right-to-work laws prevent a worker from having to pay a fee to keep a job.” That argument just might pass and lawmakers could change the bond to a reasonable liability insurance requirement, as in many other states. In any case, the legal battles ain't over.

Tattoos Could Protect Immigrants From Deportation

In other legal news, a Pakistani man, living in Staten Island, NY, is claiming that his tattoos will get him killed if deported back to Pakistan (because of a drug-related conviction), and the federal appeals courts are buying it.

The New York Sun reported:

Iraqis Get Tattooed for ID if Tortured and Killed

Rafiq probably wouldn’t have any problems with his tattoos if sent to Iraq. Naturally, he’d have other problems like torture and beheading, a regular part of Iraqi sectarian violence.

Because of this, Iraqis are choosing to break Muslim law in favor of getting ID tattoos to help their families identify them if their body is found mutilated as has been the case with so many in the country.


Photo by Nancy Youseff/MCT

In a powerful and quite graphic article in the Miami Herald, the reporter speaks of the morbid tattoo trend:

It’s all a part of what’s called exporting democracy.

Prison Tattoo Parlors Reconsidered in Ottawa

Maybe G.W. should leave that kind of exporting to people that know something about it like Canadians. Everyone loves Canadians and it’s because they’re so darn democratic. Even with its own conservative government, Canadian politicians are still willing to debate issues like reopening six safe tattoo parlors in federal prisons that were part of a pilot project to reduce the spread of disease among inmates.

Tattoos have been a long standing part of Western prison culture no matter how tattoo couture you’d like body art to be. But the spit, urine and cigarette ash that goes into cell block ink has caused staggering infection rates, and shared needles have spread HIV and Hepatitis, which could be spread even further once the inmate is released. So it’s simple: protect the inmate, protect the general population. Keep tattooing safe from Ottawa to Oklahoma. Oh, and let freedom ring.

Marisa_DiMattia is a lawyer and editor of Needled.com, a blog on tattoo art and culture.