Penal from Protection
Page 1
Continued
Charles Johnson
recalls the
standard
practice in
earlier years
of single ^celling
prisoners thought
to be gay.
If you were
ured tagged,”
you would have
to use separate
shower and
bathroom
facilities and
would have
a tough time
getting a
decent job .
7
ducted its own research that showed education
and counseling paired with voluntary testing is
just as effective.
Yet life inside is not so normalized that con­
doms are available. Despite ongoing debate,
Oregon has failed to join Mississippi and Ver­
mont in permitting this basic prevention tool.
The price of a latex sheath on the prison’s black
market is $30— only slightly more affordable
than $50 for a syringe.
Life behind bars can he a powder keg.
“Prison is a place where you see men you do
not admire and wonder if you’re like them,"
writes poet Bruce Laude. “It’s a place where you
strive to remain civilized, hut where you lose
ground and you know it."
H AAP counters that dehumanizing grind.
White puts it like this: “When we take respon­
sibility for our own lives and nurture the sense
that we can assume control and play an active
role in our own environment, we learn to value
our lives. When we empower ourselves, we also
develop a sense of responsibility for those
around us and we do everything possible to pro­
tect them."
Participating in H AAP has transformed rela­
tionships among prisoners as well as their view
of themselves.
“Before I took this program, I had a phobia
when 1 heard the word AIDS,” says one young
man.
An older straight inmate speaks of how
PHOTO BY HOLLY PRUETT
his life was changed when he first met a person
with AIDS through HAAP: “It really hit me in
the heart. It was very hard to watch him go
downhill. I came to love the guy."
HAAP offers inmates a leadership role in
their communities both inside and outside the
prison walls. Half of the class is African Ameri­
can, thanks to HAAP’s strong relationship with
Uhuru Sa Sa, the African American cultural
club.
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Projects include seminars with outside
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“There’s a lot of denial in our community,"
says Stressla Johnson, who mns the OSP Nation
of Islam study group. “We use this information
to do presentations to our young people.”
The involvement o f well-respected convicts
like Johnson and Caron sends a message that
HIV is not just a gay disease, they say, and helps
boost the credibility of the program.
And the diversity o f participants in
HAAP— from out gay men and old-style con­
victs, to Christian missionaries and a former
pharmaceutical salesman who keeps HAAP up
to date on scientific research— is testimony to
the effectiveness of an inmate-led approach.
Despite being lauded by the U.S. Depart­
ment of Justice, peer education programs exist
in only 13 percent of state and federal prisons,
according to the National Institute of Justice.
Jackie Walker, A ID S coordinator of the
American Civil Liberties U nion’s National
Prison Project, told PO2 magazine that within
that small number, “there’s a real range in terms
of how much input from prisoners is allowed.”
Says Walker: “Most prison wardens don’t
want prisoners to play active, decision-making
roles while they’re in the facility.”
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