The rapid spread of
HIV/AIDS in prisons, and practical measures to curb the spread of the disease in this section of society was the subject of a round table organized today by the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and attended by high-level international experts.
The round table took place as a side event during the thirteenth session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, currently under way in Vienna. Today, the Commission discussed the use and application of United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice. The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on HIV/AIDS in Russiaand Central Asia, Lars Kallings, addressed the Commission this morning.
Existing evidence indicates that the rates of HIV infection among prison inmates in some countries are significantly higher than in the general population. Some prisoners had been infected outside the institution and then been incarcerated, but a large number have been infected inside the prisons. The infection rates have reached levels as high as 20 per cent in Europeor even over 50 per cent in parts of the developing world. Overcrowding, hierarchical homosexual relations, gangs within prisons, lack of protection for the youngest and weakest, and poor prison management create an environment, which increases vulnerability to HIV transmission among the inmates (e.g., through unsafe sexual practices, sharing of injecting equipment or other crude substitutes, tattooing, violence, including rape, and blood exposure in general).