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This manual of state and federal laws and cases is the first volume of a multi-part manual that CHLP's Positive Justice Project is developing for legal and community advocates on HIV criminalization. Thirty-four states and two U.S. territories have HIV-specific criminal statutes and thirty-six states have reported proceedings in which HIV-positive people have been arrested and/or prosecuted for consensual sex, biting, and spitting. At least eighty such prosecutions have occurred in the last two years alone. The work of CHLP's Positive Justice Project focuses on the terrible injustice of HIV criminalization and hopes that this manual, and future publications, will make it easier for advocates to defend against these discriminatory prosecutions.

Legal Guide Shows Irrational Treatment of HIV in Laws, Arrests and Sentencing

The Center for HIV Law and Policy has released the first comprehensive analysis of HIV-specific criminal laws and prosecutions in the United States. The publication, Ending and Defending Against HIV Criminalization: State and Federal Laws and Prosecutions, covers policies and cases in all fifty states, the military, federal prisons and U.S. territories. People are being imprisoned for decades, and in many cases have to register as sex offenders, as a consequence of exaggerated fears about HIV. Most of these cases involve consensual sex or conduct such as spitting and biting that has only a remote possibility of HIV exposure. This publication is intended as a resource for lawyers and community advocates on the laws, cases, and trends that define HIV criminalization in the United States.

Access to housing, whether or where one can work, the extent to which one can participate in public service – all of these basics of an independent and responsible adult life are curtailed or eliminated for many people who pass through the criminal justice system. In view of the clearly race-based and class-based slant on so many criminal enforcement policies, these restrictions on independent adult life have a destructively bigger impact on the poor and on people of color -- people disproportionately affected by HIV. NPA's advocacy with HUD seeks to address a slice of this society-defeating inequity.

Timely Aid for Advocates; Access to Employment and Ongoing Discrimination Are Continuing Concerns for People with HIV/AIDS

HIV employment discrimination remains a significant problem.  Despite the fact that most people with HIV who receive regular health care remain healthy for years, and the fact that HIV is transmitted through limited and established routes, many Americans remain unwilling to work in proximity to people living with HIV. The Center for HIV Law and Policy's new primer was prepared in response to this problem, to arm advocates with the basic understanding necessary to assess and undertake a case on behalf of individuals who experience unfair treatment in the workplace because they are living with HIV.

One piece of the Patient Projection and Affordable Care Act, or Health Care Reform, implementation involves creation of Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans to offer options to those, such as people diagnosed with HIV but without access to employer-provided health insurance, who typically can't get affordable heatlh care coverage.  As comments to the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services point out, the signficance of this option will be seriously diluted if premium costs, coverage of reproductive health services, overly long waiting periods, and other problems aren't addressed.

With THE POSITIVE JUSTICE PROJECT,  the Center for HIV Law and Policy launched the first national movement to repeal HIV-specific criminal laws and to end the arrest and imprisonment of people based on positive HIV test results. "Too often, people who have taken the step of getting tested for HIV are treated as if infection with the HIV virus is the equivalent of packing a loaded, unlicensed gun," said Catherine Hanssens, CHLP Executive Director.  "It's time for testing advocates to focus on a real legal barrier and danger for people contemplating an HIV test -- the laws and policies that make the fact of a positive test evidence of wrong-doing and the basis for prosecution and increased prison terms."  CHLP senior advisor Sean Strub added, "There is no more extreme manifestation of stigma than when it is enshrined in the law."

Join Grammy-nominated Jazz composer and pianist Uri Caine and songstress Barbara Walker for tapas, cocktails, dessert and great music in an intimate townhouse setting just steps from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Boerum Hill, Brooklyn
6:30pm - 8:30pm

Tickets: $150

On July 13, 2010, the Obama administration revealed its proposed strategy for dealing with the HIV treatment and prevention needs of people affected by the epidemic in the United States. The National HIV/AIDS Strategy is the culmination of work and advocacy by people living with HIV, their advocates, AIDS service organizations, federal and state agency representatives, and corporate representatives, such as pharmaceutical companies,with a stake in the plan. Please check our Blog for our thoughts on the NHAS. And read the Strategy and related administration documents here: National HIV/AIDS Strategy, National HIV/AIDS Strategy Implementation Plan, and the Presidential Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Agencies and Departments.

The Women's Advocacy Resource Connection Electronic Forum (WARC E-Forum) on women's experiences with HIV launched today, July 12. The WARC E-Forum provides a unique place to report and collect the shared experiences of women and their advocates with HIV-related discrimination in the U.S. and to address the gaps in civil and human rights protections for women living with HIV. The information gathered through the WARC E-Forum will be available to help shape implementation plans for the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to help make sure that it concretely addresses the needs and rights of HIV positive women.

In response to the White House Office of National AIDS Policy's first report on community discussions that will inform development of a National HIV/AIDS strategy, the Center for HIV Law and Policy, Lambda Legal and the ACLU AIDS Project submitted addtional recommendations on issues that merit more attention, including strategies to end state-supported stigma and discrimination with respect to criminal prosecutions of people living with HIV and the inhumane treatment of correctional facility inmates who have HIV.