Prisons Try to Cope With AIDS Cases

The increase in state prison inmates stricken by AIDS has forced officials to expand segregation quarters at the prison at Vacaville and to reverse a longtime policy banning prisoners from using condoms during conjugal visits.

Still, Dr. Nadim Khoury, chief medical officer for the state Department of Corrections, said he fears that the number of stricken inmates at Vacaville, where they are sent from throughout the state prison system, will double this year alone.

In a further effort to hold down the increase, medical officials said, they have stepped up the campaign to educate the more than 63,800 inmates in 13 overcrowded prisons about the modern-day plague, acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The new policy on condoms, which are believed to greatly reduce transmission of AIDS during sexual intercourse, will involve only inmates who are not known to be afflicted with the disease, Khoury says. Inmates with AIDS are not allowed conjugal visits.

Khoury said use of condoms that family members bring to the visits will slow the spread of AIDS in two ways: to visitors from prisoners who have the disease but are unaware of it because they have not been tested medically, and to inmates from outsiders with AIDS.

Tests that detect AIDS virus antibodies are voluntary under state law, even for inmates, so officials fear that many prisoners in the general inmate population may be afflicted and not know it, Khoury said.

A ban on condoms in the general inmate population will remain in effect even though they are allowed during conjugal visits. Tom Voos, the department’s health program director, said condoms brought by family members will be counted to thwart smuggling of prophylactics inside the prison.

Officials have banned condoms inside prisons because sex among inmates is prohibited. But officials acknowledge that they are virtually powerless to halt homosexual encounters in prisons.

Problem of Smuggling

Condoms also can be used to smuggle drugs, said officials, who admit that although possession of narcotics in prison is illegal, drugs are still smuggled inside.

The system is not unprecedented, according to medical experts, who cite New York as an example of a state that allows use of condoms in prison only during conjugal visits.

Although there have been no widespread protests by prisoners who fear AIDS, officials said they have received individual complaints.

“There’s concern by inmates about it,” Khoury said. “That’s the reason those with AIDS have been put in the (segregation) unit for their protection. Otherwise, they might be a target” for attacks.

Currently, California has 74 state prison inmates afflicted with AIDS or related diseases or who have tested positive for the virus antibodies, Voos said.

Would Require Testing

The prisoners became sick and agreed to be tested, or voluntarily submitted to the tests to find out if they had AIDS.

At Vacaville, there are 72 male inmates in the two-man cells of the segregation wing or in the hospital, Voos said. Twenty have AIDS, 42 have AIDS-related medical problems, and 10 have tested positive for the presence of AIDS virus antibodies, he said.

At the Fontera prison, one female has AIDS-related problems and one has tested positive, Voos said.

Although the number of victims remained about stable for a period earlier in the year, the number has begun to climb again recently, said Khoury, who expects the number of AIDS victims to double this year and cases of AIDS-related problems to increase 50%.

A 74-bed segregation wing at Vacaville is filled, even though seven beds were recently added to the unit, and the state has been forced to open a new 76-bed wing.

Prison Cases Rising

Khoury expects the spread of AIDS in inmate populations of California and other states to catch up with that in the nation’s general population. Throughout the country, AIDS cases in the general population have increased about 82% in the last year, he said, while in prisons there has been an increase of about 60%.

Thirty California state prison inmates have died of AIDS or related diseases since June, 1984, officials said.

In an effort to educate prisoners about AIDS, California inmate reception centers at Chino and Vacaville show videotapes and distribute written materials. Doctors are available to answer questions.

Meanwhile, homosexual encounters are discouraged as much as possible. Inmates caught are disciplined administratively, with loss of various privileges, or legally, if an assault is involved. Assault victims sometimes are segregated for their protection.

Guards and nurses who care for the victims said during a recent tour of Vacaville that they are not overly afraid of contracting AIDS.

Face Greater Risk

But staff members in the AIDS section said they realize that they face a greater risk than their counterparts who police the general prison population. An inmate who wanted to infect a guard could cut the officer with something that had diseased blood on it, for example, they said.

Some inmates in the segregation unit complain that the Corrections Department is denying them proper medical and psychological treatment by unnecessarily restricting them to a single, cramped area and that they are provided little to distract them from thoughts of sickness and death.

Other inmates in the unit said they would face too much danger in the general population from other prisoners fearful of AIDS.