 In yet another shocking report published by 'The Mirror' in London on November 5th, 1999, U.S. Bureau Chief Andy Lines and I visited Alabama's Limestone Prison, quite possibly one of the most terrifying places on earth. Prison Minister James Henderson administers perhaps the only hour of sanity each week to a handful of men willing to permit God into their lives amidst the depravity of notorious dorm 16, otherwise known as the 'leper colony' ro other inmates at limestone. here, all 220 inmates are hiv positive. they receive no aids medication, the cost being too great for the state to bear. All the men in the photograph, with the exception of Reverend Henderson, will be dead within 5 years. homosexual rape is the norm for 'new boys', gang rape is common. A book is taken on the first night of a newcomer’s arrival, the winners predict accurately how many times the new inmate will be sodomised before breakfast. Rapists, murderers, child molesters, monsters and the mentally ill are thrown together in the same room with petty criminals. One large razor wire surrounded bunker, a prison within a prison with bunk beds end to end, 3 feet apart. There is no privacy here, if you scream, everyone hears. the dangerously understaffed guards face an impossible task with regular urine, blood, faeces and spit hurled at them, but they do their best. Many prisoners do not know they are HIV positive until they are tested by the prison system. This is where they will be sent, like it or not. As Andy wrote, 'If there is a hell on earth, this is it!' |