Fewer HIV/AIDS-related prison deaths

AIDS-related U.S. deaths among state and federal prisoners dropped from 24 deaths per 100,000 inmates in 2001 to five per 100,000 in 2010, officials say. A report by the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said in 2010, 72 inmates in state prisons and seven in federal prisons died from AIDS-related causes. Laura M. Maruschak, a statistician at the Bureau of Justice Statistics, said in 2010, the estimated rate of HIV/AIDS among state and federal prisoners dropped to 146 cases per 10,000 inmates from 194 cases per 10,000 in 2001. This was an average decline of about 3 percent each year, consistent with the decline across states with small, medium and large prison populations, Maruschak said. The number of male inmates in state or federal prisons who had HIV/AIDS declined from 19,027 at yearend 2009 to 18,337 at yearend 2010, while the number of females who had HIV/AIDS decreased from 1,853 to 1,756 over the one-year period, the report said.