There is a way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in prison.
But it goes against the grain of everything considered by liberals as politically correct.
The way to do it is to test all of the prisoners periodically and house those who are HIV-infected separately from those who are not.
When I was on top of this subject in the mid-1990’s, three or four states followed that almost guaranteed course of protecting uninfected inmates from those who are HIV-infected.
I talked to a former Illinois Corrections official working in Louisiana’s prison system, one of the ones that housed the infected separately from the infected.
(The liberals opposed to this practice always called it “segregation,” thus putting a racial twist on a disease that infects all races.)
The former Illinois DOC employee told me when they first instituted the policy, they put up a chain link fence between the two sections.
Guess what?
The prisoners were having sex through the links.
Louisiana solved that problem by putting up another fence 12 inches away.
The point is that prisoners are not responsible people. If they were responsible, they would not be behind bars.
Now comes my former colleague Monique Davis, who sat across the center aisle from former State Rep. Tom Johnson and me in the 1990’s, sponsoring a bill to distribute condoms in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
She has gotten the bill out of committee.
Giving prisoners condoms will not stop rape in prison.
If you are interested in the problem, here’s some more information.
The DOC has pretty much a three money approach to HIV.
Although an almost half million dollar CDC study in the early 1990’s proved that HIV was being spread behind Illinois prison walls, the Department refused to do anything significant about it.
Even when I found a “face”–M. B., then of Crystal Lake–who could proved he was HIV-infected in prison.
DOC decided to institute “peer counseling.”
Big deal.
Inmates don’t put on condoms when they are about to rape someone.
If a subservient inmate agrees to “hook up” with a dominant inmate in order not to be randomly raped, the dominant male may use a condom. That happened to Donny Donaldson, who wrote the brief
But the rape is not less a rape, even if it looks consensual.
How bad is it?
“The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable.
“Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit.
“Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan
That is the top item on the newly re-named Stop Prisoner Rape organization. It is now called Just Detention International.
But it goes against the grain of everything considered by liberals as politically correct.
First, Cal, how is this article “politically incorrect?”
Second, Cal, it’s Republicans who are against condom use. Your cohorts laud the benefits of “abstinence only education.” Might I suggest giving that a try for the prisoners?
Third, Cal, you refer to “political correctness” as if it were a misguided notion – only valued by liberals. From what I know, being “politically correct” is the effort to ensure that others are not unnecessarily marginalized by language, action, or omission that seeks to exclude or divide. That said, I would expect Liberals or Democrats to be the main purveyors of “correct” behavior. Republicans habitually prove an inability to treat others with the respect they are deserved.
Or are just “Republicans” God’s children?
Not keeping prisoners from infecting each other from HIV by separately housing them is the “politically correct” position in the USA.
It has caused many HIV infections in Illinois’ prisons, primarily from rape, but also from tattooing, I would imagine.
Liberals refuse to recognize that there is only one way to keep prisoners from infecting each other.
Hint–it is not passing out condoms in prison.
…there is only one way to keep prisoners from infecting each other
What is the way? Because I don’t think you know of ONE way to keep this from happening.
Your hint makes me think that you’d just ignore the problem, “Hey gang, getting AIDS is part of your sentence. I guess you shouldn’t to the crime if you can’t do the time…”
How compassionate of you.
Separately housing those HIV-infected from those who are HIV-free is step 1.
Step 2 is to make certain that the vulnerable HIV-infected are separately housed from the predators who are HIV-infected.
Perhaps difficult, but no prison system to my knowledge has ever attempted to do so.
I wonder if Cal wouldnt have started putting his political views into this blog, it would have been easier to see that Rusrus and Cal agree on the actual point.
If Rusrus didnt attack Cal’s words would Cal realize this too?
What i find most disturbing is what scenario my imagination went ahead and created (without my consent!)
So 145lb inmate A is in prison for numerous busts for drug posession. He has been thru treatment and has relapsed several times.
245lb inmate B is his cellmate and he is in for armed robbery and murder. He’s a gangmember and he’s been in for years already.
A couple times a month he rapes inmate A but uses his condom cause he doesnt know if the puny addict has any diseases.
Sergio Molina has sent the wrong message…..ooops.
They should damn well separate HIV infected inmates from those not infected. It is not “segregation” …..its SEPARATION.
Spelling isnt graded here i hope. Anyway…..
Men who rape get long hard prison terms and rightfully so. I can only imagine the horror a woman being raped endures.
The trauma is obvious by their fear of merely seeing the man in court.
Now imagine that woman being locked in a cell with her rapist for years.
Its not even fathomable.
Yet this happens in prisons across the world.
A person doesnt cease to be human because they are in prison.
Yet nobody seems to care about it when its in prison.
Like its part of life there. Get used to it!
I feel that if the state or fed imprisons people, they need to protect them from predators since they cannot protect themselves.
While many people might disagree, i dont think rape and assault and possibly death is fair punishment for some of the very non-violent offenses some people are locked up for.
It isnt the murderers and armed gangbanging robbers getting it in prison.
It is the non-violent inmates.
Rape is rape no matter the setting.
And HIV and AIDS is still transmitted through bodily fluids.
And when Sergio Molina wakes up and realizes that just because a guy isnt screaming, doesnt mean its making love.
Maybe then they will start making the changes needed, and protecting inmates from one another.
For those who have no sympathy for any of them, may you never be wrongfully convicted nor have a man move into your neighborhood who has been raped over and over and is confused and angry as to why.