San Francisco Chronicle - April 19, 2005
Michael Hennessey*

The San Francisco Sheriff's Department has sponsored AIDS prevention education, including condom distribution, for 18 years. Over that time, public- health workers have distributed an average of 10,000 condoms a year to prisoners who request them after participating in an AIDS awareness program. We are among a handful of county jails and prison systems in America to have such a program. Our experience, and that of the other significant correctional systems that have such programs, should serve as a model for recalcitrant jail and prison administrators, but it has not.

Everyone in the jail business has been fully educated about AIDS, how it is transmitted and what steps should be taken to prevent exposure. Jails and prisons are a natural place to provide AIDS prevention programs. The majority of prisoners are at extremely high risk of contracting AIDS. They are or have been drug users, including a high percentage of intravenous users; many have engaged in sex for money; most are from lower-income and minority communities where AIDS transmission remains high. And, of course, no one really likes to talk about it, but sex happens in jails and prisons. After all, these are prisoners, criminals -- so why should we care?

The government has a legal obligation to protect the prisoners it incarcerates from harm and to prevent unhealthy conditions. More compelling still is that 90 percent of all prisoners ultimately get out of jail. They return to our communities, resume relations with spouses and lovers, and use taxpayer-funded public-health services to treat catastrophic health conditions such as AIDS.

The California Department of Health Services reports that 87 percent of Californians believe giving condoms to prisoners is effective at preventing AIDS. Why, then, are prison and jail officials so reluctant to make condoms available as part of a comprehensive AIDS education program? Let's examine the usual arguments:

-- "Condoms will encourage or appear to sanction sex in prison." Come on -- it already happens; we all know it. As corrections administrators, we should do everything we can to prevent sex in custody, but we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the reality that it occurs.

-- "Condoms will lead to rape in jail." I have yet to meet a prison rapist who is courteous enough to worry about safe sex.

-- "Condoms will be used to smuggle drugs." The prison and jail systems - - including such diverse systems as San Francisco, New York City, the states of Vermont and Mississippi, Canada and most of the European Union -- that have allowed condoms for decades have not experienced this security problem. The smuggling risk with condoms is far less than with visits where physical touch is permitted, which occurs in almost every jail and prison system, or conjugal visiting, or any number of programs that invite community volunteers into the facilities.

-- "If we don't acknowledge it, we bear no responsibility for its existence or its consequences." Too many jail and prison systems exhibit a general bias against homosexual conduct and fear any suggestion that prisoners are having sex behind bars. But turning a blind eye to the significant public- health risk presented by unprotected sex has tragic consequences, on both sides of the bars.

The sad fact of the matter is that AIDS continues to destroy lives throughout the world and the only effective response is education and prevention. Today there are 2 million Americans in jail or prison. Within a matter of days or years, virtually all of them will be released back into our communities. What a wasted opportunity if we send them back without the knowledge of how to protect themselves and their loved ones from this deadly affliction. Or worse, that our inaction contributes to their infection while in our custody and then adds to the deadly toll in our country.

___

Express your views

What: Hearing for AB1677, sponsored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, which would allow distribution of condoms in state prisons.

When: Today, 9 a.m.

Where: Assembly Public Safety Committee, Room 126, State Capitol, Sacramento

More information:

www.leginfo.ca.gov

Contact your Assembly members online by typing in your ZIP-code at www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

*Michael Hennessey has been sheriff of San Francisco for 25 years.

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