I heard a radio show in which a spokesman from the Pierce County sheriff’s department was talking about the county’s H1N1 vaccination policies.

The radio DJ was arguing for schoolchildren to get the shots before the inmate community and the homeless. The department’s spokesperson pointed out that because of inmates’ close proximity to each other and the homeless community’s proximity to squalor, they represent the two risk groups with the highest likely rate of infection. In controlling epidemics, you target the risk groups with the highest rate of infection first so as to contain the epidemic and keep it from spreading.

What the radio DJ also failed to mention is that schools have the luxury of closing if they are faced with a swine flu epidemic whereas jails do not. Jail workers, because of the nature of their job, are in an even higher risk group than most health care workers. They need protecting too, or all the goals behind public safety agencies go right out the window.

I have two children under three. As a parent, I have the primary responsibility for ensuring that my children are vaccinated, not the government. Inmates do not have control over the choice of their health care provider. They are not capable of exercising those choices while incarcerated and so it becomes a moral, ethical and civil rights issue to do so for them. I’m glad to hear that Pierce County sheriff’s department is getting that one right.