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Lawmaker Wants Prisons To Sell Condoms To Inmates

Dave Nakayama / Flickr (CC-by 2.0)

State Rep. Monique Davis wants to give prisoners access to condoms.

Incarceration leads to a greater risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV, so she proposed selling condoms for prisoners to buy with their own money.

"If we can decide we're going to cut the spread of AIDS in Illinois, and we're going to have all different kinds of programs to do this, then that reduces the health care costs that Illinois has to spend," Davis said.

Her proposal failed in committee.

Davis, a Democrat from Chicago, tried to pass a similar law in 2009. The Department of Corrections opposed the plan both times. The agency says it does not want to condone an illegal activity.

The proposal would have allowed prisoners to purchase condoms with their own money, at no cost to the DOC.

Davis also says testing for sexually transmitted diseases should be a mandatory part of prisoners' physical examinations.

Lisa Ryan is a graduate student in the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. She previously worked at Indiana Public Radio and the college radio station founded by David Letterman. She is a 2014 broadcast journalism and political science graduate of Ball State University.
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