Could we reduce recidivism with tattoo removal prison programming?

The (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) question in the title of this post is prompted by this interesting new research paper available on SSRN authored by Kaitlyn Harger.  The piece is titled "Bad Ink: Visible Tattoos and Recidivism," and here is the abstract:

This study examines whether tattoo visibility affects recidivism length of ex-offenders. Conventional wisdom suggests that visible tattoos may negatively influence employment outcomes. Additionally, research on recidivism argues that employment post-release is a main determinant of reductions in recidivism. Taken together, these two bodies of literature suggest there may be a relationship between tattoos visible in the workplace and recidivism of released inmates.

Using data from the Florida Department of Corrections, I estimate a log-logistic survival model and compare estimated survival length for inmates with and without visible tattoos. The findings suggest that inmates with visible tattoos return to incarceration faster than those without tattoos or with tattoos easily hidden by clothing. 

Though I cannot fully parse the data reported in this paper, among the seemingly significant findings is that " inmates with tattoos located on their face, head, neck, or hands, return to incarceration faster than inmates with tattoos in other visible locations. In general, ex-offenders with tattoos located on their face, head, neck, or hands fail 674 days earlier than ex-offenders with visible tattoos in other locations."  Though this relationship between tattoo and criminal offending may well be a story more about correlation than causation, it certainly suggest to me that we might well start paying a more attention to "bad ink" as we focus efforts on efforts to reduce recidivism.