Deaths of prison inmates from HIV/AIDS have declined steadily from 2001 to 2010, according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The report said that between 2001 and 2010, “the estimated number of inmates with HIV/AIDS declined by 16 percent, and the number of AIDS-related deaths in prison declined by 77 percent.”
Findings in the report were based on data collected from 50 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons through the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Prisoner Statistics (NPS-1) and Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP).
The report also drew a comparison to the U.S. population overall and concluded that the rate of AIDS-related deaths for state prison inmates dropped below the rate for the U.S. general population.
Between 2001 and 2009, the AIDS-related death rate among state prisoners ages 15 to 54 declined from 22 deaths per 100,000 inmates to six per 100,000. The rate among that age group in the general population declined from nine per 100,000 to seven per 100,000, according to the report.
The report identified California as one of four states holding more than 1,000 inmates with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2010. California, Florida, New York and Texas accounted for 51 percent (9,492) of all state prisoners with HIV/AIDS in 2010.
The report also identified specific demographics in the affected population and AIDS-related deaths in state prisons declined among male inmates from 89 in 2009 to 69 in 2010; from 73 to 43 among black non-Hispanics; and from 87 to 60 among all state inmates ages 35 and older.
In a table showing all states and their individual numbers of HIV-positive or confirmed AIDS cases in custody by year-end 2010, California had 1,402 in 2008, 1,235 in 2009 and 1,098 in 2010. That is 0.8 percent of the custody population in 2008 and 0.7 percent in 2009 and 2010.
The report also showed the gender of this affected population to be mostly male at 1,146 in 2009 and 1,023 in 2010. Female inmates who were HIV-positive or AIDS infected were 89 in 2009 and 75 in 2010
AIDS-related deaths by demographic characteristics showed the largest affected group for this period to be black males between the ages 45-54.
METHODOLOGY
The federal government began collecting National Prisoner Statistics (NPS-1), which primarily measures prison population movement, in 1926. The series comprises reports from the Departments of Corrections in 50 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
NPS-1 includes year-end counts of prisoners by jurisdiction, sex, race, Hispanic/Latino origin and admissions and releases during the year.
In 1991, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) began using NPS-1 to collect data on HIV and confirmed AIDS cases in prisons. BJS respondents indicated the circumstances under which inmates were tested for HIV and reported the number of inmates with HIV/AIDS in their custody, the report advised.
The report concluded with the rate of HIV/AIDS and AIDS-related deaths in prison. It stated that to calculate the estimated rate of HIV/AIDS among inmates in custody of state and federal prisons, the estimated year-end count of HIV/AIDS cases was divided by the year-end custody population for each year.
Per the DCRP, the number of AIDS-related deaths in state prisons was 310 in 2001 and 70 in 2010.
