Scale up HIV/AIDS programmes behind bars says activist

Thanks to Carla Gullotta formerly of AMNESTY International USA in Jamaica and who now works in the prison system now the issue of prison sex has been raised openly. Bearing in mind the 1997 prison riots five months after my exit from a prison cell myself the issues of persons coming in HIV positive and or allegedly contracting HIV while incarcerated was known, persons were at one point said to be using plastic bags torn up in pieces as makeshift condoms seeing condoms are seen as contraband and attracts serious punishment if found. Others just go bareback (ass it tighter thinking and I am not gay but buttfuck) 

Suggestions on condoms in prison was met with sheer anger on one hand but other rival prisoners used the conflation of sneaking homosexuality through the 'back door' in homophobia violence to kill or harm said enemies.

Miss Gullotta penned:

The issue of HIV/AIDS among inmates continues to pose a public health risk. This delicate issue is one which requires a more comprehensive approach even as international funding to combat HIV/AIDS continues to dwindle.

Global research indicates that correctional administrators continue to struggle with meeting the needs of inmates with HIV/AIDS. This situation is further complicated by the fact that there is a taboo culture which prohibits open discussions about sexual issues behind bars.

HIV hit prisons early and hit them hard. Data indicates that the rates of HIV infection among prisoners in many countries are significantly higher than those in the general population. While most of the prisoners living with HIV in prison contract their infection outside prison, before imprisonment, the risk of being infected in prison is heightened.

The importance of implementing HIV interventions in prisons was recognised early in the epidemic. After holding a first consultation on HIV in prisons in 1987, World Health Organization (WHO) responded to growing evidence of HIV infection in prisons worldwide by issuing guidelines on HIV infection and AIDS in prisons in 1993. With regard to health care and prevention of HIV, the guidelines emphasised that, “All prisoners have the right to receive health care, including preventive measures, equivalent to that available in the community without discrimination, in particular with respect to their legal status or nationality.” This was recently reaffirmed in the 2006 framework for an affective national response to HIV/AIDS in prisons, jointly published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, WHO, and United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS.

Since the early 1990s, various countries have introduced HIV programmes in prisons. However, many of them are small in scale, restricted to a few prisons, or exclude necessary interventions for which evidence of effectiveness exists. There is an urgent need to introduce comprehensive programmes, (including information and education, particularly through peers; needle and syringe programmes; drug dependence treatment, in particular opioid substitution therapy with methadone and/or buprenorphine; voluntary counselling and HIV testing; and HIV care and support, including provision of antiretroviral treatment) and to scale them up rapidly.

Jamaica has made attempts to expand its HIV/AIDS programme in prisons, but these efforts need to be sustained if the gains made are to be lasting. At a time where there is a small window of opportunity to benefit from the little international funding that is still available for HIV/AIDS programmes, the Government should seek to tap into this funding and direct it towards correctional facilities.

Prisoners eventually return to the communities from which they come and they carry with them everything they would have picked up in prison. Scaling up AIDS/HIV intervention in prisons is therefore in the best interest of not only the prison community but also the fragile health system and the nation at large.

Carla Gullotta is executive director for Stand Up for Jamaica, a human-rights groups that carries out rehabilitation work with inmates in the island’s correctional facilities.

ENDS

Pity Miss Gullotta did not address the psychology of some of this in terms of substitutional sex or situational homosexuality or the prison wife phenomenon or 'gay for the stay' pieces to it as a layman; anal penetrative sex in such circumstances I have found is a feature even for gay men in a non conjugal visit systems or policy locally, so men fool around with other men to relieve sexual tension. The activity between the ears is not about the man in the physical as he is a means to an end but about the opposite sex and the engagement comes with rules. (need to do a post on this and go in depth)

Previous efforts to deal with some of this has not gone down well with the correctional services or warders in the system as they feel they will be labelled as gays or supporting such; warders have had a longstanding stigma and urban myth thrown at them for years, I came up and heard it that many it is believed enter the profession to gain access to men and that they have gifts of endowment due to regular sexual activity. 

In 1997, Lieutenant Colonel John Prescod(left in photo), then Commissioner of Corrections, suggested that condoms be distributed in the prisons as a means of stopping the spread of HIV. The suggestion sparked a riot that claimed the lives of 16 prisoners, some of whom were accused of being homosexuals and as it turns out many who died weren't actually gay but prior rivalry and a golden opportunity for a disturbance led the way to the attacks. The National AIDS Committee had recommended again in 2000 to the then Peoples National Party administration launch Mandatory medical examinations for all inmates, segregation of HIV positive inmates, legal conjugal visits, a health education programme for the prison, and permission for terminally ill patients to be allowed to die at home, were also among the recommendations made to the Government which were ignored.

Dr. Raymoth Notice (right in photo above) medical expert in the penal system had said at the time, "...We recognise that the incidence of HIV is increasing in the general population and not only that, studies have shown that the incidence of AIDS in prison is six to 10 times greater in prisons than in the general population," also he continued "the level of homophobia and ignorance as well as the lack of resources have hampered the education process a whole lot. Before we even get to the condom issue it is important first and foremost to educate the population about AIDS. But everyone has been too afraid to do anything since the riots. There is no analysis being done, no reliable data, inmates are leaving with the disease and taking it back to their communities."

Lambert Brown, the UAWU's the then first vice-president, had said that although he was still opposed to condom distribution in prisons, he had nothing against the other recommendations made.

"The fight against AIDS is not based solely on condom distribution," Mr. Brown said. "Those who are promoting condoms in prison are using the back door to promote homosexuality which is illegal." here suggesting fear.

The usual response from governments over the years when NGOs and others push for it is that the buggery law will not allow it while being afraid of the public and prison population backlash, not to mention the antigay religious fanatical penny section.

Let us see what the reaction if any will be like.

Peace & tolerance

H

Also see:
Male Rape .... nobody wants to talk about it 2011 and Should prisoners have conjugal visits? 2013

Phone Found in Prisoner’s Rectum for a Second Time in Lockup

Review condom policy for prisoners ......... 2011

Inmate attacks alleged gay prisoner

Buggery Accused Tried to Commit Suicide in Lockup .......

Man charged for assault of gay prisoner

When power differentials (of a car) attracts homophobia 

Homophobic Yet Homosocial (Repost)