The Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department is mulling over an expansion of a
program that distributes condoms to prisoners to limit the
number of inmates with HIV.
The Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department is mulling over an expansion of a
program that distributes condoms to prisoners to limit the
number of inmates with HIV.
The eight-year-old, $2
million program would double in size if Sheriff Lee Baca
approves of the plan, according to the
Los Angeles Times.
Currently the Los Angeles program provides protection for 300
inmates in a segregated section of the Men's Central Jail.
Los Angeles's jail system is one of the few in the country
-- including those in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York
City, and San Francisco -- that subscribe to this model. Nearly
2% of prisoners in the U.S. have HIV, according to a 2008
United Nations study.
Ron Osorio, a volunteer
who distributes 300 condoms to a section of the prison occupied
by gay inmates each Friday, says not all of the inmates take
the prophylactics and that just one condom per week is not
enough. "To believe they're doing it one time, come
on," he said in the article.
Osorio, who once spent
19 months in prison from 1999 to 2000, said consensual sex is
common among inmates, even though it is against the
law. He added that inmates will use anything, from plastic wrap
to empty candy wrappers, for protection against sexually
transmitted diseases.
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