Lube for Lags

As we are all well aware, as a country we face a financial problem of serious proportions. So it behoves all aspects of the state to look carefully at spending plans and prospects.

Universities are charging more than ever before, libraries close, the military are emasculated, and prisoners must have extra lubrication handed out with their condoms. Seriously,

See this little snippet from the HMI report that came out this week after a snap inspection in November,

Housekeeping points
5.30: Lubricant, to accompany barrier protection, should be freely available to all prisoners.

Now I know that we are trying to cut down on the Aids rate amongst our prison population, but that is what the condoms are for, and as far as I am aware they are pre-lubricated (unless they are the special novelty variety of course). I have no idea how many condoms are handed out, and it may well make a subject for an interesting FOI, especially in the light of the following Australian experience.

So what are convicts using the extra lubrication for? Maybe this story in Australia might point us in the right direction,

"I kept seeing these big, burly men going to the condom machine and taking one or two every day," he said. "I lived in fear that their use would involve me."
"One day I worked up the courage to ask a big Tongan man who I had become moderately friendly with and said timidly, 'Excuse me, bro,' because everyone is bro in jail. 'I see you're taking a condom every day, and I cannot believe that you would be using it as is the intention - you don't seem that sort of guy and I am confused.' "
Adler was told the inmates were discarding the condom and using the lubricant as hair gel.
"The jail population is quite poor and they would prefer not to spend their limited money on hair gel when it can be retrieved from the condom packet - thank goodness,"

This anecdotal evidence is backed up by a formal study into sex in prison,

Professor Donovan said with so little anal sex occurring in male prisons, sex cannot account for the use of 30,000 condoms a month in NSW jails. So, what happens to all those condoms and dams?
“Before condoms were introduced into NSW prisons there were strong objections by prison officers who thought that they might encourage more sex and rape, or be used as weapons. These predictions were wrong,” Professor Donovan said.
“The uses of condoms are varied. Some are liberated of their lubricant to be used as hair gel, others are used as household ties or masturbatory aids.
“Dental dams in women’s prisons are rarely used for oral sex. Instead they are reborn as tobacco pouches, hair bands, and doilies.”

Now you know.