For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Justin Burke -
213.201.1525
jburke@apla.org
Los Angeles, Calif., October 15, 2007 – AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) today said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had again failed to take an important step to stop AIDS in California by vetoing a bill allowing condom distribution in the state’s prisons.
Authored by Assemblymember Sandré Swanson (D – Oakland), AB 1334 would have allowed nonprofit and health agencies to provide condoms to inmates in state prisons, at no cost to the state. Last year, the governor vetoed a similar bill, AB 1677, on the grounds that sex between inmates is illegal in prisons.
“The governor had a chance to protect the lives of people inside and outside the prison system,” said APLA Executive Director Craig E. Thompson. “Sadly, he chose to play it safe again and put politics ahead of sensible health policy.”
Unprotected sex between inmates is a primary mode of HIV transmission in prisons, along with injection drug use and tattooing. According to a report by the National Institute of Justice, HIV infection rates in California’s prison system are eight to 10 times higher than in the general population, while the Federal Bureau of Prisons estimates that up to 30 percent of federal inmates engage in same sex activity behind bars.
“We know prisoners have sex, and the governor knows it, too,” Thompson continued. “We need to do what we can to reduce new infections, not hide our heads in the sand.”
The governor admitted in his veto message that condom distribution in prisons was “consistent with the need to improve our prison health care system and overall public health.” He also directed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to identify one state prison facility for a possible pilot project.
“We don’t need a study. We need action,” Thompson asserted. “Condoms are already being distributed in Vermont and Mississippi, as well as in some jail systems of New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. No correctional system that instituted a policy of distributing condoms has ever reversed the policy, which suggests that prison guards’ concerns that condoms would be used as weapons or as means to carry contraband have not materialized.”
Thompson also noted that the governor’s veto comes on the eve of National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, October 15. Latinos and African Americans comprise approximately 87 percent of the state’s prison population. A 2006 study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that three of every four male prisoners in California’s correctional system are nonwhite -- 38 percent are Latino and 29 percent are African American.
“We must recognize the possible link between incarceration rates among Latinos and African Americans and the fact that these are two of the communities hardest hit by HIV,” Thompson noted. “Inmates who are infected while in prison could potentially spread HIV to their wives and other sexual partners in their communities. As long as we close our eyes to the realities of this epidemic, we continue to fail those who are most vulnerable.”
According to a 2005 survey by the California Department of Health Services, nearly 70 percent of Californians believe that condom availability in state prisons is a sensible health policy.
AIDS Project Los Angeles, one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. Founded by four friends in 1982, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, visit www.apla.org.
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