HIV, AIDS, and Rape in Texas Prisons

State prison systems across the country have created breeding grounds for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that expand beyond prison walls and back into the communities. At least 24,200 of the 1.02 million inmates in the United States carry the virus, and 5,100 suffer from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)—more than six times the AIDS rate outside prison. The disease is the leading cause of death in Texas prisons, killing 475 inmates since 1992. AIDS deaths started to surpass those from cancer and heart disease in 1990, prompting the state to open separate prison wards to treat infected men and women. Yet prisons in Texas and other states are faced with a greater challenge of dealing with the deadly virus that causes AIDS. Only sixteen states and Washington, D.C. require all inmates to be tested for HIV or AIDS. Texas does not test its inmates, leaving corrections officials in the country’s second-largest prison system ignorant of how many inmates are infected with the virus. Voluntary screening shows 1,979 of the 132,400 Texas inmates carry HIV. Experts say the number of infections could be three times higher. Infectious disease clinics at two Texas prisons hold more than five hundred inmates. Other infected prisoners remain integrated in regular cellblocks.1