AEGiS-AP: British Judge OKs Condoms in Prisons

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

British Judge OKs Condoms in Prisons

The Associated Press - Monday July 5, 1999

LONDON (AP) - A British judge ruled today that gay prisoners should be supplied condoms when necessary to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Former prisoner Glen Fielding, jailed for eight years for offenses ranging from robbery to drunken driving, had waged a long campaign for access to condoms. Technically, Fielding, 37, lost his case when Justice David Latham refused his request to declare the current Home Office policy on the distribution of condoms "irrational."

But Latham also ruled that the policy had been misinterpreted.

"It seems to me that whenever a prison medical officer is satisfied that a request for condoms is from a genuine homosexual who is intent on indulging in what would otherwise be unsafe sex, he should prescribe condoms," the High Court judge said.

Before Fielding's release from prison in April 1998, he was denied condoms at several facilities and had been blocked from ordering them by mail on the grounds that they were unauthorized.

The judge said the basis for supplying prisoners with condoms was highlighted in a 1995 letter the Prison Service sent to all prison doctors, which noted that they had a duty to do as they saw fit to reduce the risk of HIV infection through unprotected sex.

In his ruling, the judge said the Home Office's refusal to supply condoms to prisoners who asked for them was not unlawful and that the Prison Service was entitled to take the view that it "should not be seen to encourage homosexual activity."

But he said that the real issue was one of health and that gay prisoners who would otherwise indulge in unsafe sex should be offered protection. Prison medical officers should carefully decide whether a request for condoms springs from genuine health reasons, the judge said.

"The policy itself might be reformulated so as to make it clear what the limits of the prison medical officers' discretion should be," he said.
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