HIV/STI tests, regardless of prison public health codes, are typically done at the end of a sentence, not upon intake. This prevents medical accountability by the prison if the jailed are HIV/STI-positive and in need of treatment, because the prison can claim ignorance to medical conditions. Even if incarcerated folks are at the end of their sentence with only six more months or less to serve, it is in the best interest of the prison and the United States’ wellness at large if testing and medications are a periodic healthcare option for people to consider throughout their sentence. ...The confidentiality of a prisoner’s status can similarly be jeopardized by forcing people to wait in line to receive medication, if HIV medications are in fact being distributed. Laura McNighe and Pascal Emmet consistently observed confidentiality breaches with HIV medical care inside Pennsylvania prisons. Other prisoners have direct visibility of medications in integrated medication lines; segregated medication lines are typically structured around viral conditions and thus create a non-consensual system of visual disclosure for all prisoners living with viral conditions. Guards often distribute medications, even though they have no formal training to do so.
"No One Enters Like Them: Health, Gender Variance, and the PIC" by blake nemec in Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, ed. by Nat Smith and Eric A Stanley