Aids education in new south Wales prisons*
| Author | Lisa Conolly,Frances Potter |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486589002300302 |
| Published date | 01 September 1990 |
| Date | 01 September 1990 |
158 (1990) 23
ANZJ
Crim
AIDS EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES PRISONS*
Lisa Conolly
and
Frances
Potter
Drawing
on the
results
of
research
evaluating
AIDS
educationin
NSW
prisons,
this
article
attempts
to answersome
broader
questions facing
correctional
administrators and AIDS educators in
prison.
In
particular,
we
examine
theincidence
of
HW
in the
NSW
prisonpopulation, the extent
of
"high-risk"
behaviour,
the effect
of
AIDS
educationand the notion that prisonsare incubators for
HW. We estimatedthat in
early
1989
NSW
prisonshad an incidence
of
1.2%
HW
infected, and
that 43%
of
prisoners
had
engaged
in "high-risk" behaviour either inside or outside
gaol.
The
research
suggests
thatthe
effectiveness
of
AIDS
educationprogrammes has beenundermined bya
confusionabout AIDS policyin
prison,
and that prisonsarenot
necessarily
"incubators"for the
virus at the present
time.
However,
the
article
concludes by saying that clearAIDS education
messages
withcomplementary AIDSpolicy must beimplementedin
NSW
prisonsto ensurethat the
incubatorhypothesis doesnot become a
reality
in the
future.
An
evaluation of the
"AIDS
Education Programme" in NSW prisons has
been
in
progress since early 1987, continuing into late 1989.
The
evaluation
has
encompassed 10 separate research studies, investigating prisoners' knowledge,
attitudes
and
behaviour in relation to
AIDS
in prison. This article draws on
the
'results of this research in
order
to advance a
broad
overview
of
the
spread
of
HIV
in
NSW prisons,
and
discuss the implications for
AIDS
education.
AIDS
is a completely new problem for prison administrators
and
researchers in
Australia
and
worldwide.
There
is still very little known
about
the
spread
of
the
Human
Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV)
in prisons. In. particular,
there
are
three
important questions which have
not
yet
been
adequately answered:
(1) How many prisoners carry
the
Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV),
and
how many prisoners engage in behaviour which
puts
them
at risk of catching
HIV?
(2)
Has
AIDS education in NSW prisons
helped
prisoners to
protect
themselves from catching
HIV?
(3)
Are
prisons "incubators" for
HIV?
This article will briefly address each
of
these questions in turn.
The
answers to these questions have
been
often implied, if
not
stated, in
much
of
the
ongoing debate about
AIDS
in prison over
the
last two years. Taking
the
first
question: How many prisoners carry
the
virus
or
are
at risk of catching it?
The
media
would have us believe
that
"prisons
are
AIDS
incubators
that
are
no
more
than
a
hive of homosexual activity
and
intravenous
drug
use"
(The Weekend Australian
10 January 1988), or "homosexual
rape
is
the
order
of
the
day,
...
the
fear
of
AIDS
has become a new form of punishment in itself,
...
a jail sentence
of
a few months
can
mean
ashortened lifetime
and
avirtual
death
sentence"
(SydneyMorningHerald
19 November 1987). It has often
been
stated
that
some 80%
of
prisoners
are
drug
users who could be at risk of catching AIDS. This figure seems to come from an
estimate
put
forward by
Gerald
Frape
in 1985 who,
after
discussions with a
group
of
"This article was presented as a paper for the Fifth Annual Criminology Conference of the Australian
and New Zealand Society of Criminology. Although the studies reported formed part of the research
programme for the Research and Statistics Division of the NSW Department of Corrective Services, the
viewsexpressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect policies of the NSWDepartment
of Corrective Services.
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