Give prison inmates free needles, agency suggests to Yukon gov't
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | 1:18 PM CT
CBC News

Outreach workers have asked the Yukon government to consider providing free needles for inmates at a new prison in Whitehorse, in order to curb the spread of HIV and hepatitis C.

The Blood Ties Four Directions Centre, a Yukon agency for people with HIV and hepatitis C, argues that it makes economic sense to include prevention programs as it looks into redeveloping the Whitehorse Correctional Centre.

Executive director Patricia Bacon said Tuesday that the Yukon government already supports programs such as the outreach van that provides free needles to drug addicts on the streets of Whitehorse. But that support stops when the addicts are in prison, she said.

The territorial government is currently reviewing all aspects of the correctional centre, where Bacon said as many as one in every four inmates already have hepatitis C and are putting others at risk.

"[It's] around the 25 per cent range for hepatitis C in prison systems across Canada" compared to two per cent of the general population, she said.

The government could provide inmates with free needles, condoms and clean tattooing equipment to keep those numbers from rising, Bacon said.
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"It's about having courage to take it on and seeing the long-term benefits to society, both economically and in terms of the health of the populace," she said.

"We'd love to see Whitehorse Corrections be perhaps leaders in the correction centres and the corrections field in Canada, in taking on harm reduction programs more thoroughly in the Whitehorse Correction Centre. I think it's really important."

She added that giving an inmate with a drug addiction a free needle would cost about 11 cents, compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in health-care system costs in treating an inmate who contracts hepatitis C.