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Tuscaloosa News

Study says segregating HIV and AIDS prisoners costly

By DAVE BRYAN

Associated Press Writer

April 30, 2003

A new study finds that Alabama's cash-strapped, overcrowded prison

system could save up to almost $400,000 per year if it quit

separating inmates with HIV and AIDS from other prisoners.

If infected inmates had access to education and community-based work

and restitution programs like other inmates, about 56 inmates more

per year would become eligible for programs outside the prison, the

study found.

That would ease overcrowding and save the state between $306,000 and

$392,000 per year, said Rachel Maddow, an expert on prisons and AIDs

who headed the study.

"It costs a lot less to have somebody in these community programs,"

she said Wednesday.

The study, "Excluding Alabama State Prisoners with HIV/AIDS from

Community-Based Programs," was released this week by the Alabama

Prison Project and the American Civil Liberties Union's National

Prison Project.

Prisons spokesman Brian Corbett said the study warrants review but it

doesn't address the potential costs of diverting the inmates from

prisons into various programs.

"It could be a case of where you save on one end and have to spend on

the other," he said.

When Mississippi dropped its policy in 2001, Alabama was the only

state left requiring segregation of HIV and AIDS prisoners from other

inmates.

The study's release comes at a time when Alabama's new prisons

commissioner, Donal Campbell has not yet decided whether to keep the

policy. Campbell was appointed by Gov. Bob Riley.

Campbell was prisons commissioner in Tennessee, which has no such

policy. The ACLU and Alabama Prison Project have asked for a meeting

with Campbell, who has not agreed as yet.

"The time is right to explore more cost-saving measures and stop the

needless segregation of HIV-positive prisoners," said Lucia Penland,

director of the Alabama Prison Project.

But the main point of the policy - that segregating prisoners means

those prisoners don't transmit the disease to other inmates - is

still a compelling argument supporting the policy, Corbett said.

"A positive of the segregation is that we know of zero transmissions

inside the prison," Corbett said.

Male inmates with HIV and AIDS are housed at Limestone Correctional

Facility in what prison officials call The Special Unit. Females are

at Tutwiler Prison for Women.

The inmates range from first-time, nonviolent offenders to convicted

murderers. At Limestone, more than 200 prisoners inhabit long rows of

bunk beds in the unit's main room, which is the length of a football

field.

At both prisons, inmates are systematically segregated

round-the-clock and excluded from programs offered to other inmates.

For years, Alabama's AIDS segregation policy was under legal attack

by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. But in 2000,

the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in which lawyers

representing HIV-infected inmates accused the state of

unconstitutional discrimination.

Still, Alabama has budget problems and the prisons are overcrowded, a

situation leading to numerous lawsuits in recent years by prisoners

and their advocates. It has also had a domino effect on local jails,

which often hold prisoners convicted of state crimes beyond the

legally mandated 30 days.

Maddow said allowing HIV and AIDS-positive inmates to participate in

work-release, community work center and supervised restitution is an

idea whose time has come.

Despite the state's policy, Maddow said AIDS and HIV can still be

spread among prisoners in the general population who are infected but

just didn't test positive when they entered the system.

"For all the emotional appeal of this idea that you can keep people

protected, the prisons have never done any study that says Alabama's

rate of transmission is any lower than any other state," she said.

Alabama Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, heads the state's Gov.'s HIV

Commission for Children, Youth and Adults. Hall said she supports

allowing infected prisoners access to the same programs as the

general inmate population.

The policy "deprives HIV positive inmates of critical opportunities

for rehabilitation afforded to the other inmates," she said in a

statement.