Rep Monique Davis Addresses Issue of Spread of HIV in Prison

Monique Davis, a representative in the Illinois House introduced a bill to allow inmates in prison and jails to possess a condom in order to descrease the spread of HIV and hepatitis. She is hailed as a hero and vilified at the same time.

Our country is nothing but a bunch of prudish people, wearing blinders, who refuse to recognize reality. Sexual drive is normal and unstoppable. Did you ever hear the phrase “gay for the stay.” This is forced on inmates and it generally is NOT a choice.

If one is imprisoned, one will masturbate. This is a normal daily human activity. Without masturbation sexual tension builds and violence increases. Yet this is an infraction in prison and when the inmate is caught “beating off,” they are disciplined. This is cruel and unusual punishment. Masturbation should not be an infraction.

I have personal knowledge of a male prisoner at CCDOC picking the lock between his and another woman inmate’s cell in the TB unit at CCDOC where each two cells have a common small medical storage room between them and then going to it, being caught with his pants down. The rate of rape in two or more man cells is astonishing. Ask the men, especially the young men. They submit or die. The sound of women in dual cells stimulating each other is so loud at times, especially when the officers are at the other end of the large units and understaffed that others can’t sleep.

Even guards are raping the women. I turned over affidavits to the U.S. Attorney about this one and a CCDOC officer was caught with his pants down on an elevator while he was transporting a woman inmate in the jail. Sooner or later America will have to deal with this issue in a realistic manner. If you are going to house inmates who suffer from HIV and hepatitis with other inmates who are disease free, than the least you can do is protect them. The inmates DON’T have a choice. Guards DO NOT protect them.

Read Amnesty International’s web site and get a dose of reality. Representative Davis should be honored for bringing up the subject, although her bill is flawed. Part of the increasing rate of HIV and hepatitis in this country is because we have 40 times more prisoners than any country or the same number of prisoners as China, which has 4-5 times our population. Our justice system is broken. With 2 1/2 million in prison and jail that is a lot of HIV and hepatitis being spread around and eventually is brought home to the community when the inmates are released. Ask yourself how other civilized countries can be safer than ours yet inprison 1/40th of the population we imprison? In Illinois we have 40,000 state prisoners. In Europe, a country with the same size population would imprison 1,000 people. We are not doing things right. We are not dealing with drug and alcohol addiction up front where the costs are less. We have not legalized marijuana. After prohibition was instituted, crime went way up; when it was removed, crime went down. We have not dealt with mental illness, instead we have de-institutionalized and then not provided funding to provide supervision and assistance outside of institutions. We have dumbed down and destroyed our education system. Teacher’s colleges give such a minimal and poor education it is pitiful, although they seem to try. Our college education is equivalent to a high school education in Europe, Taiwan or Japan. Poor choices make poor results. It is time for our government to wise up.

You can ignore a problem, say it doesn’t exist, and deny it until you are blue in the face, but it will come back and bite you eventually. The costs of ignoring this issue are staggering. It doesn’t just affect prisoners and their families. When inmates bring sexual diseases back to society, they spread, as the reality is not everyone is celebate or faithful to their spouse or sexual partner.

Tags: Inmate Sex