Section 7500 Of Chapter 1. General Provisions From California Penal Code >> Title 8. >> Part 3. >> Chapter 1.
7500
. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The public peace, health, and safety is endangered by the
spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and hepatitis B and C within state
and local correctional institutions.
(b) The spread of AIDS and hepatitis B and C within prison and
jail populations presents a grave danger to inmates within those
populations, law enforcement personnel, and other persons in contact
with a prisoner infected with the HIV virus as well as hepatitis B
and C, both during and after the prisoner's confinement. Law
enforcement personnel and prisoners are particularly vulnerable to
this danger, due to the high number of assaults, violent acts, and
transmissions of bodily fluids that occur within correctional
institutions.
(c) HIV, as well as hepatitis B and C, have the potential of
spreading more rapidly within the closed society of correctional
institutions than outside these institutions. These major public
health problems are compounded by the further potential of the rapid
spread of communicable disease outside correctional institutions
through contacts of an infected prisoner who is not treated and
monitored upon his or her release, or by law enforcement employees
who are unknowingly infected.
(d) New diseases of epidemic proportions such as AIDS may suddenly
and tragically infect large numbers of people. This title primarily
addresses a current problem of this nature, the spread of HIV, as
well as hepatitis B and C, among those in correctional institutions
and among the people of California.
(e) HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis B and C pose a major threat to the
public health and safety of those governmental employees and others
whose responsibilities bring them into direct contact with persons
afflicted with those illnesses, and the protection of the health and
safety of these personnel is of equal importance to the people of the
State of California as the protection of the health of those
afflicted with the diseases who are held in custodial situations.
(f) Testing described in this title of individuals housed within
state and local correctional facilities for evidence of infection by
HIV and hepatitis B and C would help to provide a level of
information necessary for effective disease control within these
institutions and would help to preserve the health of public
employees, inmates, and persons in custody, as well as that of the
public at large. This testing is not intended to be, and shall not be
construed as, a prototypical method of disease control for the
public at large.