The U.S. Department of Justice is taking steps to outlaw the segregation of HIV positive prisoners, calling it a major hindrance to treatment and rehabilitation.
Justice, which houses the Bureau of Prisons that oversees inmate treatment, is responding to a study that concludes that singling out HIV positive prisoners for special attention and isolation causes “stigma, harassment and systematic discrimination. It is also in direct violation of international laws.”
While quarantining individuals with HIV/AIDS is medically unwarranted (and prison systems around the country and throughout the world have already realized this and acted accordingly), in 1998, the state of South Carolina enacted legislation mandating that HIV positive prisoners be segregated from the rest of the inmate population. Currently, only South Carolina and Alabama have such laws.
According to the study, seperation hampers efforts to effectively treat ailing patients and rehabilitate inmates in need of re-integration guidance. At certain locations, having HIV can prevent an inmate from getting a job while incarcerated. In fact, it can change how much good behavior is necessary to get an early release. The opportunity for supervised work in the community will be restricted or completely denied for prisoners who need this crucial step towards re-integration.
Attorney General Eric Holder specifically demanded that the state of South Carolina abolish the following policies, according to the Associated Press:
1. The “blanket segregation” of HIV-infected prisoners.
2. Procedures that deny HIV-infected prisoners from having equal access to prison jobs.
3. Rules that prohibit HIV-infected inmates from having adequate meal times. The virus “reduces the absorption of food and makes it more difficult to eat.”
4. Discrimination that prevents HIV-infected inmates from being able to participate in work-release programs.
5. Rules that [prohibit] HIV-infected inmates from handling food in the prisons.
–terry shropshire
