Page 3161 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 November 1992
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The question that this amendment Bill addresses is: How do we protect people who are in detention from the spread of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases? While official statistics claim otherwise, sex between detainees does occur, and drug taking and needle sharing do occur. It is unfortunate that thus far governments have been reluctant to acknowledge that drug taking and sexual encounters do take place while people are in custody.
What I hope will be recognised in this amendment Bill is the fact that we are not asking custodial officers to be proactive in carrying the safe sex and drug use message to inmates. That would not be appropriate. What this amendment Bill asks is that custodial officers allow counsellors access to detainees to distribute AIDS and STD kits. These kits contain specific items - water-based lubricant and condoms to promote safe sex, and bleach for cleaning syringes that are used for intravenous drug taking. These kits also contain information about the transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus to give people in remand more knowledge of what behaviours place them at risk and what they themselves can do to minimise that risk. Counsellors will also be able to discuss at the detainees' request their own risk of HIV/AIDS infection.
It is important to recognise that the kits I have just described are already handed out to detainees, but at the end of their period of detention. What use is this to current detainees? What I am seeking to do through the passage of this amendment Bill is to make these kits available for detainees at the beginning of the process and not at the end, after they may already have engaged in behaviour which may have placed them at risk.
In "HIV/AIDS: Education and training" Alan Grimsley states that intravenous drug users are disproportionately represented in prison populations and implies that the ACT would not be an exception. It would be fanciful to suggest that dependent drug users in custody would be able or are able to give up drug taking. It is much more likely that they will continue to procure drugs and continue their habit. There may not have been many charges laid or proven by authorities; however, drug taking and sexual intercourse incidents do occur. The reality is that a person can go into remand HIV negative and leave having been exposed to the virus. Not all remandees, not even most, but some, will be exposed to the virus. Equally, a person can go into remand HIV positive but be unaware of that fact and could expose another person to the virus. The people currently in detention in Canberra may have come from many walks of life and have different backgrounds, but all deserve protection, especially when it can be so easily provided
A study in South Australia in 1989 conducted by that State's Health Commission found that, while the percentage of HIV infected prisoners in the prison system was not high, prisoners tested HIV positive tended to be clustered in particular prisons. The study estimated that about 42 per cent of all prisoners in that State indulge in risk taking behaviour at least once during their time in detention. The prisoners in the study estimated that 36 per cent of all their fellow inmates injected drugs and 12 per cent indulged in anal intercourse, at least on one occasion, while in gaol. Sixty per cent of former prisoners, who had histories of intravenous drug use, interviewed by the study team had shared needles and most did not clean needles adequately. That, Madam Speaker, sounds to me like a recipe for tragedy.
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