Bursting at the Seams: An Analysis of Compassionate-Release Statutes and the Current Problem of HIV and AIDS in U.S. Prisons and Jails
![handle is hein.journals/nejccc24 and id is 547 raw text is: NOTES
Bursting at the Seams: An Analysis of
Compassionate-Release Statutes and the
Current Problem of HIV and AIDS in
U.S. Prisons and Jails
I. INTRODUCTION
The virus which causes AIDS can exist out in the big bad world of
jail or prison for long enough to be a real danger to you. You can't
see it, you can't tell by looking at someone if they are HIV positive or
HIV negative. It's just a stupid microscopic bug which doesn't give a
shit whether you are North or South; wear blue or red; are black or
white, or orange, or yellow, or whatever. It doesn't know, or care, if
you are gay or straight, man or woman, adult or juvenile. HIV is
growing fastest in the populations in jail and prison!'
Longer mandatory prison sentences coupled with the increase in
HIV-positive inmates has created a serious issue in United States' pris-
ons and jails How should state and federal prisons handle those in-
1. THE CORRECTIONAL HIV CONsORTIuM, DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE INK
(n.d.).
2. HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is defined as a human T-Cell leu-
kemia/lymphoma virus that is the agent of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
HIV has a selective affinity for helper T-cells; in vitro infection of helper T-cells
results in cytopathic effects and cell lysis. RICHARD SLOANE, SLOANE-DORLAND
ANNOTATED MEDICAL-LEGAL DICTIONARY 564 (Supp. 1992).
3. See Ralf Jfirgens, HIV/AIDS and Drug Use in Prisons: Will Prisons Fail the
Test? (visited Apr. 10, 1998) <http://www.acsp.uic.edu/IACO/kvl7Ol17.htm>. '[B]y
choosing mass imprisonment as the federal and state governments' response to the use
of drugs, we have created a de facto policy of incarcerating more and more individu-
als with HIV infection.' Id. (quoting National Commission on AIDS, HIV Disease in
Correctional Facilities, Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 1991, at 10).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nejccc24&div=23&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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