Today a federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama entered a historic decision in the quarter-century-old fight for equality for prisoners living with HIV. It’s the culmination of a month-long trial in a class-action lawsuit by the ACLU that put Alabama’s discriminatory and dehumanizing treatment of prisoners with HIV under a national spotlight.
Driven by stubborn prejudice and willful ignorance, Alabama has been categorically excluding prisoners with HIV from a host of rehabilitative, educational, trade skills and vocational programs—even barring those with serious mental health needs and substance abuse problems from critically important treatment programs. Alabama houses them in HIV-only dormitories, and forces all male prisoners with HIV to wear a white wrist-band night and day—a latter-day yellow star.
I entered a system that stated in its mission statement that I would be rehabilitated and prepared for society upon my return. That is so far from the truth. I have been subjected to a system that belittled me and literally made fun of me and my illness. There were times when I felt less than human.
I am hopeful that Judge Thompson’s decision will dramatically change the misconceptions about HIV. We are human beings and we deserve to be treated as such. It is true that I am a convicted felon and I have been sentenced to do my time, but being HIV-positive in the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) system has convicted me twice.
In 2011, the ACLU and the ACLU of Alabama sued the Alabama Department of Corrections for discrimination against inmates living with HIV. Alabama is one of only two states, along with South Carolina, that continue to segregate inmates living with HIV in separate housing units and otherwise restrict their access to prison programs. We are awaiting a decision. You can read more about it here.
You can’t tell by looking at someone whether he or she is living with HIV. That is, unless you catch a glimpse of a man who’s living with HIV in the state of Alabama’s prison system.
There are over 200 male prisoners living with HIV in Alabama. The Alabama Department of Corrections requires each of them to wear a white armband at all times, making their health status obvious to other inmates, prison staff, and visitors. The practice is a huge affront to prisoners’ privacy and confidentiality, and it’s one of several forms of discrimination against prisoners living with HIV that we’re fighting to stop in the Henderson v. Thomascase, currently on trial in federal court in Montgomery. As we’ve said before, public health authorities have been explaining since the 1980s that routine physical contact does not transmit HIV.
For 25 years, the ACLU has been a forceful advocate to end discrimination against prisoners living with HIV. We've worked to end their segregation from the rest of the prison population and ensure they are afforded access to vital services and programs.
You can’t catch HIV from everyday contact with the people around you.
Old news, right? In fact, all of those points were made in Understanding AIDS, the health information pamphlet mailed to every American household by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in 1988. But apparently the message was lost on folks at the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC).
Alabama segregates all prisoners with HIV, and houses them separately from all other prisoners – it’s an HIV ghetto. As soon as you walk into Limestone Correctional Facility, the prison where Alabama houses all male prisoners with HIV, you know who has the virus: they are forced to wear a white armband day and night.
On September 9, 1971, in response to brutal living conditions and oppressive policies, prisoners rose up and took control of New York's Attica prison. The prisoners held more than 30 prison staff hostage, taking care to protect them from additional harm, while prisoner representatives sought to negotiate with state leaders. They protested the horrific conditions in which the prisoners were forced to live. They protested the lack of educational programs and basic medical care. And they demanded change.
