AIDS-related deaths among all state and federal prisoners dropped from 24 deaths per 100,000 inmates in 2001 to 5 per 100,000 in 2010, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2010, 72 inmates in state prisons and 7 in federal prisons died from AID-related causes. The rate of AIDS-related deaths among all state and federal prison inmates declined on average about 16 percent each year from 2001 through 2010.
The decrease in HIV/AIDS deaths among state prisoners was driven mainly by declines among males, black non-Hispanics, and inmates age 35 or older. The number of AIDS-related deaths among male state prisoners declined from 89 deaths in 2009 to 69 in 2010. Among black non-Hispanic state prisoners, it dropped sharply from 70 to 43 deaths, and among state prisoners age 35 or older the number dropped from 87 to 60 deaths. These declines in HIV/AIDS deaths were offset by slight increases among white non-Hispanic state prisoners (from 15 to 23 deaths) and prisoners under age 35 (from 7 to 12 deaths).