The public health implications of HIV criminalization: past, current, and future research directions

Abstract

While public health remains the primary site of authority for preventing HIV transmission, recent shifts in the biopolitics of HIV have heightened tensions in the institutional and discursive relations through which the sexual lives of people living with HIV and broader HIV epidemics are regulated. Most notably, over the past decade, criminal justice responses to HIV have gained considerable traction. The growing use of the criminal law to regulate perceived HIV transmission risks has occasioned considerable controversy among people living with HIV, community-based AIDS organizations, health-care providers, public health authorities, prosecutors, judges, and the legal community. This article introduces a special section of Critical Public Health focused on the public health implications of HIV criminalization. The article reviews past and current work on the topic, situates the contributions made by the articles published in the special section, and outlines directions for future inquiry.

Keywords:

• criminal law
• HIV/AIDS
• public health

Notes

1. In 2011, Denmark’s Minister of Justice suspended its HIV-specific criminal law. See Bernard (2011).

2. Depending on the jurisdiction, people living with HIV can face criminal punishment for not disclosing their HIV to another person, for exposing an individual to HIV or for transmitting the virus. While criminal charges arise primarily in the context of sexual activity, in some jurisdictions, they can also apply to biting, spitting, sharing injection equipment, donating blood, and mother to child transmission. In some jurisdictions, special penalties can apply for existing crimes when HIV is involved. The term HIV criminalization is used as a catchall phrase to refer to all these forms of criminalization.

3. For related findings on the impact of HIV criminalization on HIV testing see Lee (2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CIHR Centre for Social Research in HIV Prevention Seed Funds (2012).