Health Aides Push Condoms for Prisons

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Health Aides Push Condoms for Prisons

Boston Globe (12/26/96) P. B9
Dowdy, Zachary R.

Abstract: Massachusetts public health officials and correctional officers are debating the state's longtime policy of prohibiting condom distribution inside prisons, where AIDS is six times more prevalent than in society at large. Health officials say that, despite rules to the contrary, sex and rape will continue to occur inside prisons, and that Massachusetts should follow the model of prisons in Canada, Vermont, and Mississippi, which already distribute condoms to inmates. Massachusetts prison officials say that condoms provide containers for contraband, and that they would encourage inmates to have sex, an activity that is illegal and punishable. To bolster their argument, AIDS experts cite a rising occurrence of disease in prisons: whereas roughly 3,430 U.S. inmates had AIDS in 1992, the figure rose to 5,279 in 1994.

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