NCJ Number
224694
Date Published
2007
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This paper examines why women throughout the world are at risk for HIV in prisons, and recommendations are offered for ways to address this problem.
Abstract
Most women inmates are from socially marginalized groups at high risk for behaviors associated with the transmission of HIV. They are more likely to have engaged in sex work, drug use, and/or risky sexual behaviors. In the closed environment of prisons, women are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse, including rape, by both male staff and other male prisoners. There are countries where women prisoners are held in small facilities adjacent to or within prisons for men. Women inmates are susceptible to sexual exploitation and may engage in sex in exchange for food, drugs, cigarettes, and toiletries. Many women drug users will continue using and injecting drugs in prison, and women inmates who had not used drugs prior to entering prison may do so while in prison. Absent sterile injecting equipment, women inmates will inject with used needles or with home-made syringes. Like men, women get tattooed in prison, and this procedure is likely to involve using needles that have not been sterilized. This can place them at risk for the transmission of HIV. In the absence of access to HIV prevention measures, the risk of HIV transmission is higher in women‘s prisons. Recommendations for preventing women’s high risk of exposure to HIV transmission in prison are intended to address the prevention of violence, particularly sexual violence; the provision of safe and appropriate health care; training prison staff in health care both for themselves and inmates; the monitoring and evaluation of women inmates for HIV risks; and the promotion of effective national responses to meet the special needs of women inmates. 20 notes