by Ariel Ramchandani/Feb 14, 2012

Educator Angela McLaurin urges inmates to learn their HIV status in a video designed for Illinois inmates.

The rate of HIV infection among prisoners in Illinois is 14 times the rate among the general population. And whether a person comes to prison with it or gets it while behind bars, it’s an alarming public health issue, particularly when you know that 85 percent of the 35,000 people released from Illinois Prisons each year return to the Chicago area.

To the Illinois Department of Corrections, they are prisoners. To the Rev. Doris Green, they are patients.

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN  .

COXSACKIE, N.Y - Approaching the sprawling brick prison on a late weekday morning, correction officer Jerome Brantley detected the pleasing aroma of fish fry wafting down toward the chain link and razor wire fence: Lunch and, according to Brantley, the best food in Greene County. All of it courtesy of inmates.