The health of people in Australia's prisons 2022

Engaging in at-risk sexual behaviours, particularly with new or casual sexual partners, increases the risk of sexually transmissible diseases (STIs).

Of 138 prison entrants who had a casual sexual partner in the previous 3 months:

• 35% reported they always had unprotected casual sex in the previous 3 months
• 42% reported they often or sometimes had unprotected casual sex
• 23% reported they never had unprotected sex (Figure 9.17).

Figure 9.17: Prison entrants, self-reported unprotected sex frequency, by sex and Indigenous identity 2022

Notes

1. Percentages exclude participants reporting no casual sex partner in the previous 3 months and those who did not report their sexual behaviour.
2. Excludes Victoria, which did not provide data for this item.
3. Proportions are representative of this data collection only, and not the whole prison population.

Source: Entrants form, 2022 NPHDC.

Males (38%) were over 3 times more likely than females (11%) to report always having unprotected sex. Females were more likely to report sometimes (67%) or often having unprotected sex than males (38%).

Non-Indigenous Australians (38%) were fairly similar to First Nations people (33%) in reporting always having unprotected sex. First Nations people (25%) were fairly similar to non-Indigenous Australians (21%) in reporting never having unprotected sex.