A “harm reduction” approach to public health, rather than an abstinence or look-the-other-way policy, scored another win this month when the California state legislature gave the green light to a bill that would provide condoms for adult prison inmates.
The plan, to furnish all the state’s prisons with condoms-likely
through vending machines-was put forward despite the fact that it’s
illegal in the Golden State to have sex behind bars. The bill, approved
last week by the state’s assembly and senate, now heads to Gov. Jerry
Brown’s desk, where it will await its fate.
As a group, prisoners have higher rates of HIV, hepatitis C and other
sexually transmitted infections than the free population, so providing
condoms could disproportionately assist efforts to curb the spread of
these diseases. The bill would require the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide condoms to five of the state’s
prisons by 2015 and to incrementally expand to all 34 adult male and
female prisons. The condoms and the machines would be provided through
external donations.
Putting condoms in the hands of
inmates has met with stiff opposition in the past. In 2007, then-Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have enabled health
groups to provide condoms to state prisoners. Nonetheless, he also
called for the state corrections department to set up a pilot condom
distribution program in one prison. The trial was deemed a success: roughly 800 inmates at Solano State Prison in California were able to access free condoms via vending machines without major incident. A 2011 report on the pilot penned by Calif. Correctional Health Care Services
and the Calif. Dept. of Public Health praised the initiative, and said
the program should be expanded. Against that backdrop, the new bill was
introduced by Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland.
Opponents of the current bill
maintain that supplying condoms for inmates when inmate sex is on the
books as a crime is tantamount to encouraging prisoners to break the
law. Correctional officers have also expressed concern that condoms
could encourage more sex or be used to conceal or transport weapons–or
even be used as a weapon itself (via a phenomenon called “gassing” where
bodily fluids are weaponized…look it up). Improper disposal of condoms,
they say, could also pose a health risk. But numerous studies of
populations among which condoms are distributed have not observed a rise
in security risks, health concerns or in self-reported sex among
prisoners. Moreover, studies of prison populations
indicate that, legal or not, sex occurs between prisoners and between
prisoners and prison guards. Without condoms available, most sex goes
unprotected.
The idea of staving STIs via condoms in prison is nothing new. The
World Health Organization has recommended for the past decade that
condoms be made available to incarcerated populations. Meanwhile, about
80 percent of the European Union, as well as the governments of Canada,
Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Iran, already supply
prophylactics in prison.
Vermont, home to a prison population
of about 2,000 people, is the only state that currently provides
condoms for all its inmates. For about a decade, inmates there have been
able to request condoms from a health worker, as well as to receive
information about sexual coercion and how to seek help. (Mississippi,
too, supplies condoms to prisoners, but only for conjugal visits between
couples contingent upon proof that they are married). About a half dozen jail systems in the U.S., including those in New York City and Washington, D.C., also provide condoms.
California, with 120,027 current inmates, has one of the largest
prison populations in the country. So, ramping up protections for that
population could help put a sizable dent in the transmission of HIV,
hepatitis B and other STI infections nation-wide.
