Prisons are hostile environments. Assaults among prisoners, violence between prisoners and prison officers, suicide, self-mutilation, and open syringes and needles containing blood as a result of drug usage are all occurrences in prison environments. Such actions expedite the transmission of communicable diseases.

In an effort to thwart disease spread, prison guards and employees are encouraged to take precautions to prevent contracting or spreading diseases. Usage of impermeable gloves and a uniform worn only in the prison are the minimum precautionary measures to reduce exposure to diseases, as recommended by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) [1] for prison guards and employees. Ideally, all prison guards, employees, and inmates should be provided with gloves. Protective eyewear, aprons, tongs or forceps, and disinfectant solution are all additional measures that should seriously limit disease-causing contact with prisoners and thereby reduce disease spread [2]. Unfortunately, such preventive measures are costly and considered impractical at the current time, leaving prisons mostly only able to screen inmates for health problems.

Meanwhile, involuntary actions such as the increasing numbers of rapes in prisons are fueling disease spread as well. According to Laura Stemple, executive director of the human rights group Stop Prison Rape, the rate of sexual abuse is as high as 27% among women in some prisons. In the general United States population, only three in every ten thousand people have been raped according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [3]. However, in prisons, one in five has been sexually assaulted, while one in ten has been raped while in prison [4]. Thus, disease spread through rape is far more likely in prisons. Many victims of rape find it embarrassing to reveal that they have been raped and refuse HIV/AIDS testing and other tests for sexually transmitted diseases. Oftentimes, prisons ignore rapes because it clearly displays to the public and government that the prison administration has not been effective. Rape is not death and therefore is easy to conceal. Thus, many prisons have gotten away with concealing rape incidences and are not pressured to prevent it from occurring. In response, Congress introduced the Prison Rape Reduction Act in 2002 to establish a national commission to drastically reduce rape occurrences in prisons nationwide. The Act established committees by the Justice Department that review prisons annually. Those prisons with unusually high rape incidents would have to undergo examination and determine how to improve.

An acute disease such as HIV/AIDS is already a health obstacle in American society. According to the NIAID, the rate of HIV/AIDS infections has been continuously increasing despite increased efforts taken by the government and activist groups to control the HIV/AIDS spread. Shockingly, the rate of HIV/AIDS spread is five to ten times higher in prisons than that in the general population according one study by the U.S Department of Justice [5].

When prison inmates are released back into society, the chances of incidence of HIV/AIDS are dramatically increased. An already deadly and difficult-to-control disease is becoming more difficult to control. Health concerns are not monitored closely enough in prisons. The Prison Rape Reduction Act is a step in the right direction; however, more funding should be allocated to ensure prisons are safer. After all, those same individuals who are disregarded as prisoners will return to society as regular citizens and will spread communicable diseases.