HIV testing in the prisons

Re “Prison’s hidden threat,” editorial, Jan. 31

AIDS Project Los Angeles and other state and national HIV/AIDS advocacy groups have been working for several years to help legislators -- including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) -- craft thoughtful bills to address HIV/AIDS in prisons. These efforts would ensure that inmates get not only HIV testing but the medical care, drug treatments and prevention tools they need, including condoms. Too often, proposed legislation has targeted the prison population as a vector of new HIV infection when available research, such as the Georgia Corrections study you cite, indicates that a majority of infected inmates are HIV-positive when they enter the corrections system.

Testing inmates should help combat HIV/AIDS behind bars. But if we want to reduce the alarming HIV infection rates now being reported in communities of color, we will have to provide these communities with the same level of resources -- HIV and STD testing, care, treatment and prevention -- on the outside that Waters’ bill would provide in the prisons.

CRAIG E. THOMPSON

Executive Director

AIDS Project Los Angeles

*

Human Rights Watch shares the concern about the high number of HIV-positive inmates in U.S. prisons and jails. Many HIV-positive inmates are also infected with hepatitis B and hepatitis C, as the war on drugs continues to incarcerate, rather than treat, people with a history of injection drug use. Access to testing for inmates is a must; automatic testing, however, is not, as there is nothing routine or automatic about receiving a positive HIV test result in a prison setting.

Inmates have a right to make an informed decision about when or whether to test for HIV, after weighing the consequences, which may result in transfer, work or program limitations, segregated housing, discrimination and even violence. Ignorance about one’s HIV status can be addressed in many other ways, particularly through education about why voluntary testing is important.

Counseling, prevention measures, substance abuse programs and condom distribution are all sensible approaches that preserve human rights and promote public health objectives. We understand that Waters is in the process of redrafting her bill to reflect these concerns.

MEGAN MCLEMORE

REBECCA SCHLEIFER

Human Rights Watch

HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program

New York