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Hiv/Aids in Prison

In: Other Topics

Submitted By Shellygutknecht
Words 1017
Pages 5
Michelle Gutknecht
Critical Issues in Corrections
Final Essay
February 18, 2013

In prisons across the country there are multiple challenges faced, one being HIV and AIDS. Inmates are often held in unsanitary conditions in which the HIV virus is spread through the use of non-sterile drug injection equipment, sexual contacts, tattooing and sharing of razors. America has the highest rate of HIV positive inmates in the world at about 1.5., and this is at the lowest it’s been. In previous years it was about 194 cases per 10,000 inmates. These issues are not just present in male prisons either. Drug-related crimes constitute the largest percentage of arrests, and most of these crimes involve possession rather than sales or manufacture. Given the large number of drug users incarcerated in the U.S., it’s an issue in both female and male prisons. Some inmates can be HIV or AIDS positive at the time they are incarcerated. By already being infected they are imposing a risk for the rest of the population, so it’s important that prisons test new inmates and are able to place them in protective custody in order not to spread the illness to more inmates. Unfortunately, this is not the only way inmates catch the disease, its common they become infected after being incarcerated. This is where the real challenge of prevention in prisons presents itself. Injecting drug use, sexual behavior, tattooing, and violence are all contributors in prisons. Within prisons it is difficult to obtain clean injecting equipment (possessing a needle is often a punishable offence) and therefore many people share equipment that has not been sterilized between uses. Using unsterile equipment is an effective way to catch HIV. Within in prisons, sexual behavior is common among inmates, due to boredom or filling a hole in their lives. Even if they are forbidden under prison rules, it happens in

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