Positive Justice Project Presents on HIV Criminalization to New York’s HIV Health & Human Services Planning Council Policy Committee, Receives Support (2013)

The Policy Committee of the HIV Health & Human Services Planning Council invited the Positive Justice Project (PJP) to present on issues related to HIV criminalization at the Committee's January 2013 meeting at AIDS Service Center in Lower Manhattan. Adrian Guzman of The Center for HIV Law and Policy presented on HIV-specific laws and policies across the country, New York state laws that target people living with HIV, and various cases in which New Yorkers were arrested and prosecuted on the basis of their HIV status. He discussed PJP's national efforts to end HIV criminalization, highlighting PJP's federal and state advocacy and its recently released PJP Consensus Statement on the Criminalization of HIV in the United States. 

The Policy Committee discussed concrete ways it could support PJP's work, and several members are working with PJP to draft a list of recommendations to present at the February 2013 meeting of HIV Health & Human Services Planning Council. The Planning Council, which serves New York City and Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland Counties, is the largest in the country, overseeing $120 million in Ryan White CARE Act Part A funding to support access to appropriate, quality services across the continuum of care for New Yorkers living with HIV.