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| Task Force Will Consider Condoms for Jails |
| By PlanetOut.com Network |
| Published: 04/10/2002 |
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Could safer sex be making an appearance behind bars? According to the AIDS Law & Policy journal, a federal committee on HIV issues will consider recommending condom distribution in prisons. The March 15 issue of the journal quotes Scott Evertz, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, as saying that a task force including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson will evaluate the condom issue. In a departure from conservative philosophies, Powell has supported condom use. Two million Americans are in jail or prison. According to AIDS Action, the rate of HIV infection in individual prisons ranges between one and 20 percent of prisoners; a study found that two to three percent of prisoners tested in California were HIV-positive. But the exact number is unknown because many prisons and jails don't test inmates for HIV. An estimated one in three male prisoners engage in sexual activity with other men. Even so, the rate of HIV infection in prison is actually higher among women than men, a fact attributed to a higher rate of prostitution and intravenous drug use. According to experts, condoms are only distributed in county jails in Washington D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco and in state prisons in Vermont and Mississippi. Los Angeles County began distributing condoms last year to the 300 inmates who live in a gay-only section of one of its jails. At the time, an expert on AIDS in prison said the county had taken a 'bold' step. 'Almost everybody tacitly acknowledges that same-sex behavior goes on. Most is consensual, and some of it is forced,' said Dr. Frederick Altice, director of the HIV in Prisons program at Yale University. 'If there is going to be risk going on, and you have an option to decrease transmission, we should be doing whatever we can.' However, Altice acknowledged that no one knows if condom distribution does indeed reduce the rate of AIDS in prisons and jails. |
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