Politics, bigotry and prison policy

[proud2BlibKansan]

The right accuses the Obama administration of trying to promote the spread of AIDS

With headlines like "Obama Administration Promoting the Transmission of AIDS" and "The Justice Department Wants You to Get AIDS and Die," there has been more heat than light in some of the responses to the news that the U.S. Department of Justice may sue the South Carolina Department of Corrections over its segregation of HIV-positive prisoners.

It would be easy to think that those writing these fiery opinion pieces were standing up to a great injustice. But the authors, wrong on science and wrong on civil rights, are merely fomenting bigotry and intolerance.

As first reported by the Associated Press last week, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has sent a letter to South Carolina’s corrections department stating that it will bring legal action unless prisoners with HIV in the state are provided with housing, prison job programs and work release opportunities on an equal basis with other prisoners.

The move came two months after Human Rights Watch and the ACLU reported that the segregation of HIV-positive prisoners in South Carolina and Alabama was medically unnecessary and discriminatory. The report found that placing HIV-positive prisoners in designated HIV/AIDS units in high-security prisons also was costly and endangered the prisoners. Although segregation of HIV patients was once common, South Carolina and Alabama are the only two states in the U.S. that now follow this archaic and discredited approach.

more . . . http://www.salon.com/life/aids/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/08/14/prison_segregations_aids&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%2520Newsletter%2520%2528Not%2520Premium%2529_7_30_110