Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is considering expanding an eight-year-old program at Men's Central Jail that distributes condoms in a unit for gay men, the Los Angeles Times reports. Under the program, an outreach worker from the nonprofit Center for Health Justice visits the jail once weekly to distribute about one condom per inmate to the unit's 300 inmates. Baca is considering doubling the number of condoms being distributed. Sheriff Department officials acknowledge that HIV is a problem in county jails and spend about $2 million annually on HIV/AIDS medication and identify about 65 new cases of HIV each month, according to the Times. Steve Whitmore, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's Department, said, "Sex in jails is against the law, but there is a public health issue that needs to be considered." A separate condom distribution program is being piloted at the California State Prison at Solano (Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times 6/29).