“Lara Stemple, executive director of the non-profit human rights group Stop Prisoner Rape, told UPI,”Rape and HIV in prison is eight to 10 times as high as in the general population.” Her group views AIDS as an unadjudicated death sentence because people who receive only a short sentence for their crime but contract AIDS while in prison have essentially had their sentence extended to death.
She said the people most likely to be raped in prisons are nonviolent and first-time offenders and these are the most likely to be released back into the general population, which ultimately poses a disease risk to society. In addition to AIDS, herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases have been spread in prisons and hepatitis C is an epidemic in certain prisons, Stemple said. Men as well as women run the risk of being raped while in prison, she said. One in five men have been sexually assaulted while in prison and one in ten have been raped. Stemple said among women inmates, the rate of sexual abuse can be as high as 27 percent in some prisons. In addition, women have become pregnant while imprisoned, which often is an indication they have been raped by male guards, she said.”
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