The prison is 35 miles northwest of Fresno and 100 miles east of San Jose. Half of the 3,500 inmates in Chowchilla, the nation's largest women's prison, are incarcerated for drug crimes or thefts related to their drug addictions.
Many drug users say they depend on the flow of drugs to numb the effects of prison life.
To shoot the dope, inmates use dirty syringes stolen from medical waste bags from the prison infirmary where AIDS patients are treated. Farmon said that the allegations of needle theft have not been investigated. AIDS counselors and prison watch dog groups estimate that at least 150 Chowchilla women may be infected with HIV, many having contracted it inside the prison. The women know these needles are dirty, and they're trying to clean them with prison bleach. But the bleach is powdered and cut with detergents.