Stop AIDS In Prison Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Stop AIDS in Prison Act of 2009 requires the Federal Bureau of Prisons to develop comprehensive policy to provide HIV testing, treatment, and prevention for inmates in Federal prisons. This legislation will combat and prevent the continued spread of HIV and AIDS among prison populations and the community at large.

Mr. Speaker, there are about 200,000 prisoners in the Federal prison system, but the incidence of HIV and AIDS in the prison system is difficult to measure because not all prisoners are routinely tested.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the prison population, like the population of America as a whole, includes prisoners who are HIV positive and do not know it. In 2006, a report by the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that over 1 percent of Federal inmates were known to be infected with HIV. The United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have historically defined an HIV epidemic as occurring when the overall percentage of disease among residents of a specific geographic area exceeds 1 percent. That means that the percentage of prisoners who carry the HIV/AIDS virus may have reached epidemic proportions.

The occurrence of HIV and AIDS cases in Federal prisons is at least three times higher among prison inmates than it is among the United States population as a whole.

H.R. 1429 requires routine testing of all Federal prison inmates upon entry and prior to release. For all existing inmates, testing will be required within 6 months of enactment. This reasonable requirement will enable prison officials to reduce HIV/AIDS among inmates and provide counseling, prevention, and health care services for inmates who are infected with the disease.

For those prisoners tested when they enter prison, testing will ensure that they receive adequate treatment, education, and prevention services while incarcerated. Similarly, it is important that prisoners are tested shortly before release into the community so adequate services can be coordinated for the prisoners after release. That in turn will protect the community that they then reside in.

I believe in thorough punishment for criminal offenders because the public deserves to be protected; but we have a duty to treat prisoners humanely and to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, not just within the prison populations, but to the populations they return to.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee and particularly Congresswoman Waters for her work on this legislation. She has led the way, she has pushed hard, and she, with Ranking Member Lamar Smith, bring this bill today with broad bipartisan support. As was said earlier, this bill passed by suspension in the last Congress, and we would hope that it passes early and is signed into law at the earliest possible date. H.R. 1429 remains an important piece of legislation yet undone by this Congress from the previous Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think the gentlelady made such a good point that, in fact, we have an obligation to recognize that individuals will return to our community, and they need to return healthier than they came in. So the requirements in this bill, both for testing on the way in and testing on the way out of prison, are so important.

Mr. Speaker, under Governor Pete Wilson, I had the honor to serve on his prison board for the Prison Work Program. What I discovered in prison is exactly what the gentlelady from California is alluding to, that we often incarcerate without doing the other things that should be done--education programs, work programs, drug and alcohol detoxing programs, and, yes, recognizing that good physical and mental health are essential, that we have to make sure that people who are being prepared to leave prison are being prepared to not return to prison.

So I join with the gentlelady in support of this effort, like so many others that she has championed over the years.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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