In 2014 California became the second state after Vermont to officially provide inmates with condoms as a public health measure. Nationally, one in seven people living with HIV passes through a correctional facility each year, according to the CDC, and prisoners are disproportionately at risk of other sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and hepatitis C. In California alone, more than 1,000 prisoners are known to be HIV positive. One of the reasons other states have been slow to follow Vermont’s lead is because sex is prohibited in prisons and jails across the US. This report highlighted the high rates of sexually transmitted diseases among prisoners, including recent findings regarding the large number of HIV cases amongst California prisoners, and information about a previously underreported syphilis outbreak in Californian prisons. Unusually the article featured prisoners themselves sharing their attitudes to condom distribution and sex in prison.
