California’s penile system

Should inmates in all-male prisons be provided with condoms?

California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has just vetoed a bill the New York Times editorial page noted “would have permitted the distribution of condoms in California’s AIDS-ravaged prisons.”

The Times editorial also stated:

• “Mr. Schwarzenegger said he vetoed the bill because it conflicts with state law that makes sexual contact among inmates illegal. That’s self-defeating and a denial of the reality of life behind bars, and the governor seems to know it.”

• “His veto statement acknowledged that condom distribution represents a reasonable public policy, and it is consistent with the need to improve our prison health care system and overall public health.”

• “The governor ordered up a pilot (condom) distribution for one as-yet unnamed prison. … Public health officials around the world have long realized that condom distribution is central to any meaningful AIDS-prevention effort.”

This Times contention begs three questions undealt with in the editorial:

1. How is the distribution of condoms to prisoners not an official invitation – and permission – and equipping – to engage in anal intercourse?

2. Are there in existence any condoms that never break, leak or come off?

3. Does the construction of the human body indicate that condom breakage and leakage is more possible in anal or in vaginal intercourse?

This Times editorial also failed to raise the question: Are prisoners who have AIDS or syphilis separated from the main prison population? Or are they in the same cells with prisoners who have these two deadly diseases, whose leading distributors are male homosexuals (according to the records of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in Sacramento told me: “No, that would be discrimination. By law we cannot disclose whether or not they have these diseases.”

That evoked my conclusion: “In California prisons, the bulk of the inmate population – which is not homosexual, and does not have AIDS – is in some instances forced to live in the same cell with a homosexual inmate who has AIDS. How is this not discriminatory – as well as deadly?”

The spokeswoman replied: “If an inmate is sexually predatory, that could preclude him from having any cellmate. Each prisoner has to sign a form stating ‘I am willing to share a cell with this person.'”

When I asked her if correctional officers regularly keep watch over cells to stop any sodomy, she replied: “This is done because such sexual activity in prison is against the law.”

But she went on to say: “We have such overpopulation in our prisons, that there are inmate dormitories and inmates housed in gymnasiums and dormitories where there is triple-bunking.”

She did give me the good news that California prisons now provide most inmates with the opportunity to have conjugal visits from both wives as well as registered domestic partners.

“There are what is called family visits overnight. But these are not available to all prisoners, including those sentenced to life without possibility of parole – or for the 667 prisoners on death row.”

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Les Kinsolving

Les Kinsolving hosts a daily talk show for WCBM in Baltimore. His radio commentaries are syndicated nationally. His show can be heard on the Internet 9-11 p.m. Eastern each weekday. Before going into broadcasting, Kinsolving was a newspaper reporter and columnist – twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary. Kinsolving's maverick reporting style is chronicled in a book written by his daughter, Kathleen Kinsolving, titled, "Gadfly." Read more of Les Kinsolving's articles here.