Peer Councilors speak to new inmates about Hepatitis C and other STDs.

Listen to Part 3: "Enemy Within: Hepatitis C"
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Listen to Follow-up conversations
 Listen to HIV and Hepatitis C peer educators at the Suffolk county jail.
 Listen to a conversation with John Noonan, director of Health Services for Massachusetts Department of Corrections and Dr. Anne Degroot, co-chair of the HIV Education Prison Project at Brown University.

In the Massachusetts prisons and jails, an alarming number of inmates are testing positive for a potentially deadly virus.

It’s not HIV, it’s Hepatitis C. Health officials say Hepatitis C is now the number one communicable disease in the state’s prisons. They estimate as many as 40 percent of all women inmates in Massachusetts and 30 percent of all male prisoners have been infected with the virus.

In Part 3 of our series, "The Price of Punishment", producer Jennifer Schmidt looks at how inmates and correctional facilities are coping with a disease some say could test the limits of prison health care.

Lawmakers Investigating Alleged Prisoner Mistreatment - a WBUR report WBUR Investigates Allegations of Abuse of Prisoners HEPP News, HIV Education Prison Project National Commission on Correctional Health Care Mass Department of Public Health website for Hepatitis C Massachusetts Department of Corrections