ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the retrenchment of a prisoner's right to adequate medical treatment is experienced by those who advocate on behalf of HIV-infected prisoners. It focuses on the lived effects of rights being taken away. For most of American legal history, the concept of "prisoner rights" in practice has largely been a contradiction. To explore the contemporary world of HIV prisoner rights, Fleury-Steiner conducted 25 interviews with advocates who work in prisons from 4 major regions in the US. The world of HIV-infected prisoner rights advocates is largely an uphill battle fought against a Prison Industrial Complex that is neither willing nor equipped to address their clients' many needs. The inaction of prison officials is given flesh in respondents' stories of both the effects of the Prison Litigation and Reform Act and in respondents' stories of the prison's culture of inhumanity.
