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BC Persons with AIDS Society

Prison Outreach Program helps those starting over

In the early 90s, two volunteers from the British Columbia Persons with AID Society (BCPWA) responded to a prison inmate’s request for assistance in dealing with HIV. That request was the start of what is now called the Prison Outreach Program.

“In the early days of the program there was very little information about HIV or drug use for people in the prison system,” says Terry Howard, Prison Outreach Program Coordinator. “So our efforts were geared toward education and harm reduction. But since many prisoners had few or no visitors, we saw that it was also providing much needed emotional support as well.

Even though the need was obvious, Terry says one of the biggest obstacles they’ve had to overcome has been the lack of interest from funding groups: “Historically, nobody wanted to touch a program dealing with the prison system. Shooting Stars was one of the first.”

The program has seen many success stories, where inmates have been able to turn their lives around, realizing they no longer want to live the way they did before they were incarcerated. “We’ve even had some come to BCPWA to volunteer,” says Terry. “They found a real purpose in giving something back through volunteering.”

With the $7,000 grant in 2004, the outreach program was able address the particular needs of inmates who are re-integrating back into society, including necessities such as obtaining birth certificates, social insurance cards, and BC ID cards — elements essential for finding work and housing. They’re also being provided with assistance in life planning. To successfully re-integrate themselves, inmates must plan how they are going to get treatment, deal with addiction, and obtain housing once they are released. Planning is vital to success. Without a plan, most inmates fail to provide even the most basic necessities for themselves.

In the last year, the prison outreach program made more than 2,000 outreach visits. The prevalence of HIV and AIDS in prison populations is 10 times higher than in other high-risk groups, and crosses all lines of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Of the 3,500 inmates in the federal and provincial prison systems, 20 to 40 percent have HIV or AIDS. Although originally geared toward men’s prisons, the program now serves both men’s and women’s institutions.