Calif. Bills Target Inmate Rape, Condoms

...One of the bills, which passed out of the Public Safety Committee 4-2, would allow nonprofit groups and health agencies to distribute condoms and other bodily fluid barriers in California prisons...

...The second bill, which was advanced by the committee on a 5-1 vote, would require the Department of Corrections to take efforts to prevent prison rape....

I am all for the latter bill. The prison system can do better in this regard. But inasmuch as even consensual sex between inmates is against the rules, the first bill is essentially authorizing the distribution of contraband in the prison system. You can't have rules and do a wink-wink about breaking them.

As for HIV/AIDS, it makes far more sense to test ALL prisoners and spreading of the disease in the prison system is better stemmed by isolating those infected from the non-infected population. The infection rates among criminals are sufficiently high so that such "isolation" would still have infected prisoners with plenty of company.

Evie