Corrections officials push change to HIV prisoner policies

LANSING — A Michigan Department of Corrections official has confirmed that the department is in the first stages of making a change to a controversial policy barring HIV-positive prisoners from working in food service jobs.

MDOC Assistant Director Russ Marlan said in an interview last week that the department’s director, Patricia Caruso, has approved a plan to change the policy, something Michigan Messenger first examined in April followed by an investigation by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

“[Caruso] has authorized a change in the policy,” said Marlan, who serves as a department spokesman. “She authorized me to begin that process with our policy people.”

As a result, a letter and draft language eliminating the food service prohibition provision went out sometime in the last week to wardens and other stakeholders in the corrections department, Marlan said. Those officials will have 30 days to respond to the proposed changes, and if nothing surfaces to challenge the change, the policy could go in effect as early as the beginning of December.

Marlan stressed that while the policy change was not a “done deal,” only strong reservations from wardens and others backed up with substantial information could derail the roll-out of the policy revisions.

“She has said it couldn’t just be anecdotal, they’d have to have real data,” Marlan said.

Statistics from 2006 show1 percent of the Michigan’s prison population was infected with HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

The current policy is in place, Marlan said, to prevent violence. The basis for the policy was the cause of some controversy earlier this year, when Marlan told Michigan Messenger that the policy was to prevent HIV from being spread to other prisoners through food. At the time, Marlan suggested it was possible for the virus to be transmitted through a HIV-positive inmate sneezing on food. Marlan also suggested that an infected prisoner could transmit the virus in kitchen accidents, saying, for example, that blood on a radish could cause HIV to spread.

Months later, Marlan retracted his comments telling Michigan Messenger they were “ridiculously wrong.” They also triggered a review of the policy by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

The actual reason for the policy is the fear that out of ignorance, a prisoner who is HIV-positive serving other prisoners could result in targeted violence against the HIV-positive prisoner. Federal courts have ruled corrections policies do not have to be based on facts, but have a wide latitude to address real or perceived threats to security. Potential violence could certainly be a threat to security.

But Marlan said education in place in all MDOC facilities should negate the ignorance factor which could fuel potential violence. Prisoners are tested annually for the virus, and are given extensive peer-lead education on HIV and its transmission.

Activist Mark Peterson, a director with the Michigan POZ Action Coalition, is praising MDOC officials for the policy change.

“I think it shows we are in a place where a department is seeing HIV as a health issue and not so much a hysteria disease response,” Peterson said.