AIDS, Prison, and Preventative Medicine: :: HIV Jail Violence Rape Papers

AIDS, Prison, and Preventative MedicineThe intelligence service prison house house house conjures up thoughts of a dark and deviant subculture, living in a chaotic and destructive environment out of the sight and point of mainstream America. Hollywood has skewed our views of pris whizzrs, painting them as a crackmingly irreparable subclass of humans that are only further downgraded and downtrodden by prison lives alter with violence and rape. Certainly the life of a pris unrivaledr is tough, and violence is inevitably present in prison systems where gangs frequently match a magnanimous role in social organization (Conover 2000). However, misconceptions regarding prisons are numerous, and such misconceptions play an important role in how the AIDS problem in prisons is viewed. For example, one of the intimately vivid, if not widespread misconceptions surrounding prisons are the stories of forced informal activity and gang rapesa view likely to lead an noncitizen to suspect tha t little can be done to prevent infection of HIV among prisoners. In reality, this aspect of prison has been overdramatized and overemphasized, perhaps as a deliberate effort to amplify the purported deterring effect that the threat of a prison sentence has on crime. In fact, Ted Conover reports in his first-hand account of the infamous Sing-Sing, one of New Yorks most troubled maximum security prisons, that while prison rape still occurs in New York and elsewhere, by far the most common type of prison wind, after the autoerotic, is certainly consensual. He goes on to say, I would even guess that, at least at Sing, shake up among officers and inmates is presently more common than forcible shake between inmates (Conover 2000). Such an example is a prime reason why prison officials, politicians and the general public alike need to focus not on the stereotypes of prison behavior, official codes of conduct, and expected or even legal behaviors, nevertheless rather what is actually occurring behind prison wallsillegal or legal, for let out or for worse. If rape isnt as widespread in prisons as the just moviegoer might be willing to believeat the very least, it certainly isnt an everyday occurrenceand prisoners are not allowed to have sex or use drugs, then can one expect to see lower incidences of AIDS in prisons? NO As Conovers statement indicates, very much of what goes on in prison isnt supposed to take place. Prisoners have sex with each othermost often consensually, but in around instances forciblyand even with guards they take drugs, both injecting and non-injecting they get tattoos they participate in fights that often involve the shedding of blood.