Outside In :: Serving homeless youth and low-income adults in Portland Oregon

Erasing the past: At Outside In, a new life starts with removal of old tattoos

The Portland Tribune Copyright 2005;
Written by Anna Johns;

The young man sitting in the corner of Starbucks looks like a typical twentysomething in his blue T-shirt and relaxed fit jeans. A closer look reveals tattoos on his face and arms. It’s written all over his body: This man was a gang member.

The man, who asked that his identity be kept secret, says he joined a Portland gang at age 15.

“I think I was just young and impressionable,” he says. “It didn’t seem like I could fit in anywhere else.”

He says he spent his teenage years drinking, fighting and causing mayhem. Then, in his early 20s, he got caught robbing a bank.

“I really didn’t care,” he recalls. “I figured prison was the worst option, and the best option was that I would get money.”

Now, nearing 30, he’s out of prison and holding down a job. He swears his gang days are behind him but, because of the obvious tattoos, he’s having trouble erasing the past.

That’s where Outside In comes in. The transitional housing program for homeless youths also runs a tattoo removal program called Project Erase.

“I’ll be more accepted within the community and society,” he says of removing his tattoos. “I don’t feel like I’m a threat to anyone. Not to gang members, not to society.”

The former gang member is one of more than 300 people having tattoos removed for free at Outside In, 1132 S.W. 13th Ave. Most of the patients are referred by their probation officers who worry that identifying marks could make parolees a target for gang violence.

“Gang members are a huge focus for us,” says Stacy Hall, clinic manager at Outside In. “We treat folks who are trying to make significant changes in their lives.”

To qualify for the program, tattoos must be socially unacceptable and in a prominent place on the body — for instance an anarchy symbol on the forehead, profanity on the neck or a naked woman tattooed on an arm.

“They are things that would create a difficulty for someone to get a job or turn their lives around,” says John Duke, manager for the clinic and health services department at Outside In.

“One of the first ones I saw taken off was a swastika that a guy had tattooed on his forehead,” says Tim Thunder, a doctor at Providence Portland Medical Center who volunteers four hours a month. “When you see a person who has that tattoo you make certain assumptions about him.”

Volunteer doctors run a laser over the skin to break down the ink in the tattoo so the immunesystem will carry it away. Depending on the number of tattoos and their sizes, each session can last anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. One patient has a small black tattoo between her eyebrows that took only 15 seconds to zap with the laser. Another patient sat for 25 minutes as doctors moved the laser beam over seven large tattoos on his arms and legs. For most patients, the removal process is a lot more painful than getting the tattoos.

“It feels like a rubber band snapping at your wrist,” says Misty, 17, who is having a gang-related tattoo removed from her hand.

After each session, the skin temporarily puffs up in the shape of the tattoo so it looks like a 3-D image. Eventually the skin shows no trace of the tattoo ink, although, in rare cases, patients end up with discoloration or scarring from the laser.

“For me it’s fun to take them off,” Thunder says. “It’s like playing a video game.”

Outside In received the laser in 2002 from the Oregon Psychiatric Association, which started removing tattoos in the mid-’90s as a way to treat incarcerated gang members. One of the founding members of that project, Susan Denman, a dermatologist, continues to volunteer her services for Outside In. Over the past 11 years, Denman has seen people mutilate their skin as they try to burn or cut off their tattoos.

“It’s the small ones that are a mark of what the person had to do to join a gang,” Denman says. “Those bother them the most because they are a constant reminder of violent crime.”

Last fall, the waiting list for Project Erase topped 300 people — that’s when managers realized they needed to schedule more than eight hours of tattoo removal. Outside In launched a volunteer campaign, which netted 36 new doctors with a wide variety of specialties. The doctors just wrapped up training.

“Most of the doctors are volunteering once a month for anywhere between two and four hours. That’s a lot of tattoo doctors,” says Hall, who now schedules 60 hours of tattoo removal per month.

The program doesn’t run on volunteers alone. The most expensive part of the project is the laser. It requires regular maintenance, which means Outside In has to fly someone in from the manufacturer in California to fix it.

“It’s an incredibly unique machine,” Duke says. “It’s not like there’s a laser repair shop around the corner.”

Project Erase lost its funding last fall when the original grant from the Northwest Health Foundation was not renewed. Thunder came to the rescue by helping Outside In get a $20,000 gift from Providence Health Systems — which funds the program through this month. After that, Outside In plans to skim money from other programs to keep Project Erase running for several years.

Patients can only go under the laser once every two months, and since it takes 10 to 12 sessions to make a tattoo disappear, the entire process can take up to two years. So far, Outside In hasn’t had a high success rate because patients either stop coming to appointments or they break the law again and end up back in jail.

For those who do return again and again for treatment, the removal of the tattoo mirrors the long process it takes to leave a life of violence and return to polite society.

“Getting my tattoo removed will help start a new chapter in my life,” says Misty, the former gang member, whose tattoo already is disappearing with just two sessions. “For me, it’s closure.”