The James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna has a program training aspiring tattoo artists.
The Tattoo Artist Career Pathway Program lasts 12 to 18 months and currently has six students.
Its coordinator Larry Normile built the program from the ground up, which begins with a 12-week course on blood borne pathogens and sanitary practices. The first course also teaches students about drawing, different tattoo styles and information on the industry, including financial advice.
The second 12-week course is all about tattooing on fake skin. From there, inmates in the program take six months to one year tattooing live skin.
Normile, who owns his own Dover-based studio Artistic Additions, said inmates gain skills in the program that will help them with re-entry.
“Basically, we're doing a full exit plan for these gentlemen, so when they get out, they have a complete understanding of what they're going to do,” Normile said. “And so does probation and parole, and so does the employer that they're going to go to.”
His program also helps put together portfolios for inmates when they start looking for jobs.
The six inmates currently enrolled started classes in April 2024. Normile’s next group of six is set to start this April. That includes two inmates with life sentences and four who will re-enter society.
“The goal behind this whole mission is to, for one, stop the spread of diseases in the tattoo world inside that prison because it's costing them about $2.5 million a year,” Normile said. “So that's why we're taking on the lifers, because those ones don't have a reason to stop.”
When people receive tattoos and piercings in sanitary spaces by professionals, there’s no definitive evidence for an an increased risk of hepatitis C virus, according to a study by the CDC. The risk of infection is significant when applied in prison settings that are nonsterile, according to the same study.
The tattooing space at the Smyrna prison looks and functions as a regular tattoo studio, Normile said.
“Imagine an industrial tattoo studio – all brick walls, industrial heating, air conditioning, pipes all up the top, black walls and gray walls with black floors. And it just looks like a tattoo studio. So when you walk in, you're already like, ‘holy crap, am I still in prison or what?’”
The space bolstered morale for inmates, Normile said, but it didn’t start out that way.
“When the program came in, people were skeptics. They were like, ‘Oh, it's not gonna make it.’”
But the program persisted even with delays, which lengthened one 12-week course to 20 weeks.
“You can just see the happiness, the joy, the focus, everything about it. If you walked in there and you were there for 10 minutes, you would just feel the energy,” Normile said.
Normile’s program will celebrate its one-year anniversary in April with a new group of six. Six months into training, they’ll be tattooing skin, and Normile is already thinking of how to help their exit strategies.
“That way there's no lapse in tattoo time because I don't want them to stop tattooing. If you stop tattooing, you're going to lose valuable lessons,” Normile said.
Normile says seven nearby states are interested in implementing similar programs, as well as prisons in Florida and Kentucky. Normile’s goal is to expand the program so it’s offered in prisons throughout the U.S.
