On September 25, 2008, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved by voice vote a House-approved bill (HR 1943) requiring HIV/AIDS testing for inmates upon arrival in federal prisons. Under the legislation, testing and counseling would be required for inmates when they first enter the prison system, and follow-up testing would be available once a year upon the inmate's request or sooner if the inmate potentially was exposed to HIV infection.
In addition to testing, the Federal Bureau of Prisons would be required to give inmates living with HIV/AIDS comprehensive medical treatment, as well as testing and treatment referrals for prisoners preparing for release and would be required to submit a report to Congress on its procedures for testing, preventing and treating infections transmitted sexually or through injection drug use, such as HIV/AIDS or hepatitis.
The House passed the bill by voice vote in September 2007. Current federal law and Bureau of Prisons regulations requires people sentenced to six months or more in prison to receive an HIV test if it is determined that they are at risk for the virus. “It all sounds good on paper,” said former federal inmate and American Prisons Consultants founder Larry Jay Levine, “but there's thousands of people in the feds needing medical care now they're not getting. Take Eric Douglas Johnson serving a nine year Federal sentence at FCI Bennettsville in South Carolina. He's been in Federal custody and in pain for over a year needing severe dental work, and the best the BOP can do is give him Motrin. Unless new money for the BOP comes along with it, it's just more worthless bullshit."
