Congratulations, You’re Free (And You’ve Got AIDS)!

It’s not exactly political, but this is an interesting and important issue, via the Galveston County Daily News:

During the first five months of 2006, 480 inmates who were released from Texas prisons took more than just their hopes and dreams of starting a new life as they rejoined society. They also carried the virus that causes AIDS.

As HIV infection rates continue to rise in the United States, medical professionals who care for the prisoners — the population with the country’s highest rate of infection — say more emphasis on prevention and education is needed to curb the epidemic of infection.

Some men knowingly infect their spouses or girlfriends with HIV because they are unwilling to admit they had high-risk sex in prison.

First of all, if you are in prison, is there any kind of sex that isn’t high-risk? Second, if prisons are monitored so well, how on earth are inmates having sex to begin with?

However, thanks to a bill from the ‘05 session, at least now the state (and the inmates) know which ones being released are HIV positive):

The Texas Legislature passed a bill in May 2005 requiring that mandatory screening, citing the “genuine threat to public health” caused by the increasing number of inmates with HIV in prison who return to the community. Only 20 states require mandatory HIV testing.

“We need to overcome our discomfort and attack the problem, because it is costing lives inside and outside prisons,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston).

About 80 percent of incoming prisoners submit to voluntary HIV tests, said TDCJ spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

At the end of May, there were 154,367 prisoners in the Texas prison system, of which 2,598 were infected with HIV. As of December 2005, 894 Texas prisoners had AIDS. Of the state’s total HIV prison population as of that month, 1,494 were black, 628 white and 273 Hispanic.

Of course, something that could curb this is something that would never happen in Texas prisons any more than it will ever be condoned in Texas high schools:

[Anne] De Groot [De Groot, director of the HIV/TB research lab at Brown University in Rhode Island] suggests that HIV infections in and outside prisons could be prevented if condoms were distributed to U.S. prisoners. A study of Georgia inmates published in April reported that, among those prisoners reporting consensual male-with-male sex in prison, only 30 percent used barrier protection, such as plastic food wrapping or rubber gloves.

TDCJ’s Lyons said supplying condoms to inmates is not something that the state would consider.

“We don’t encourage any kind of sexual activity in the prisons, be it consensual or otherwise,” said Lyons. “There is some kind of misconception that prisons are this hotbed of infection, but most cases (of HIV) are already contracted before the prisoners get here.”

Uh, I think those statistics might indicate otherwise.  As for “not encouraging” sexual activity in prison, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t it actually against the rules inmates are required to abide by for them to be having sex in prison? I think it is.

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