City Has No Plans to Implement AIDS Condom Policy in Jail

The city of Los Angeles thinks condoms ought to be distributed to prisoners to help prevent the spread of AIDS, but so far it is a policy on paper only.

The county and state officials who run California’s jails say no to the idea.

And even in its own lockups, where prisoners are held a short time before arraignment or transfer to county or state facilities, the city has no immediate plans to distribute condoms.

The condom distribution idea was one of the most controversial positions taken when the city passed an AIDS policy last week that proponents called the most comprehensive and progressive in the nation.

Condoms are part of what has come to be known in the AIDS era as “safe sex.” They are considered helpful in preventing infection by the AIDS virus carried in semen.

The city has implemented a related policy resolution: distribution of condoms and bleach kits--used by intravenous drug users to clean needles--to prisoners upon discharge from city lockups, according to a spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley.

But the city is not distributing condoms to people during incarceration, because of the close supervision in city lockups and the “extremely short period” before transfer to county or state facilities, said spokesman Bill Chandler.

Bradley “feels strongly that county and state officials should not bury their heads in the sand with respect to what really goes on in prison,” Chandler said.

“Sex is illegal in the prisons,” said Michael Van Winkle of the California Department of Corrections, which supervises 96,000 inmates in 20 prisons around the state. “What kind of message are we sending out if we provide condoms?”

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which runs county correctional facilities, said there are no plans to distribute condoms.