Inmate AIDS Test Shows Startling Rate of Exposure

The first major AIDS testing of California inmates has found that as many as 2,184 felons infected with the virus entered state prison last year--more than eight times the number of prisoners previously identified as having been exposed to the deadly virus.

Blind tests conducted by the Department of Health Services for a monthlong period revealed that 2.55% of the men entering prison had been exposed to the AIDS virus--nearly three times the rate of the general population. Among women entering prison during a two-month period, a startling 3.1% were found to be infected, according to the study.

Call for Legislation

The results of the testing program, which did not reveal the identities of any inmates, prompted prison officials Thursday to renew their call for legislation that would permit them to test every prisoner for the deadly virus.

“This continues to give support to the idea of mandatory testing,” said Craig L. Brown, undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency. “We have about 2,000 (infected prisoners) out there and we know who about 250 of them are.”

Faced with a prison health problem of massive proportions, state officials said they are proposing the establishment of semi-autonomous penitentiary units that could each hold as many as 800 prisoners exposed to the AIDS virus.

If prison officials win approval for mandatory testing, they plan to place in these units all inmates who have tested positive for exposure to the AIDS virus but have not yet developed symptoms of the disease. Prisoners who developed symptoms of the disease would be housed in separate facilities.

State Health Services Director Kenneth W. Kizer, who oversaw the study, said the blind tests demonstrate the need for continuing education among prisoners about AIDS and the ways in which it can be spread.

“Every incarcerated person should receive education and the opportunity to be tested,” Kizer said.

The study to determine the prevalence of AIDS in prison was conducted by examining the blood of 6,179 convicts during routine entrance physicals last spring. The blood of 655 other inmates could not be analyzed for various reasons, including that of 227 inmates believed to be intravenous drug users. Prison doctors were unable to obtain adequate blood samples from these drug users, who are considered to be at a much higher risk of contracting the virus. If they had been included in the study, Kizer said, it might have indicated an even higher rate of AIDS infection in prison.

Of those prisoners whose blood was sampled, 137 men and 25 women tested positive for exposure to the virus, a rate of 2.55% for men and 3.1% for women.

When extrapolated to provide an estimate for the entire year, the study calculated that between 1,404 and 1,957 men infected with AIDs entered prison. Similarly, between 105 and 227 infected women went to prison during 1988, the study concluded. Thus, at least 1,509 and as many as 2,184 AIDS carriers entered the prison system.

As of Jan. 1, there were 252 known inmates with AIDS, AIDS-related diseases or who had been exposed to the virus, according to the Department of Corrections. These prisoners are housed in special facilities at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, the California Institution for Men in Chino and the California Institution for Women at Frontera.

Higher Among Returnees

The study also found that parole violators returning to prison were more likely to have been infected with the virus than inmates committed for the first time.

And it showed that people arrested in the San Francisco Bay Area had a higher rate of AIDS infection than those from Southern California and the rest of Northern California.

Release of the study underscored a longstanding disagreement between officials of the Department of Corrections and the Department of Health Services over the best course to follow in stopping the spread of AIDS in prison.

Nadim Khoury, a deputy corrections director and the department’s top doctor, said that prison officials need to know which inmates are infected to protect other inmates and prison guards. The department is already conducting a substantial education program to warn inmates of the dangers, he said.

“Reality dictates that you need to know everything you can in order to treat them, provide psychological support and modify their behavior,” Khoury said. “I am not against the civil rights of anyone, but I think there has to be a balance between the needs of the inmates who are infected, and the needs of inmates and staff who have not been infected.”

Kizer, however, the state’s leading public health official, pointed out that significant problems remain to be resolved with a mandatory testing program, including that the tests are not always accurate. If prisoners were segregated according to their AIDS status, guards and inmates would be given a false sense of security and prisoners who were not infected could be mistakenly placed among convicts who are, he said.

“Some people are trying to make it kind of a simple issue,” Kizer said. “I think it’s anything but simple.”

Last year, the Deukmejian Administration endorsed legislation that would have permitted prison officials to order all inmates to undergo AIDS testing. The measure by Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin) died in the Assembly, but he has introduced a similar measure this session.