Photo credit: DiasporaEngager (www.DiasporaEngager.com).
Recommendations
When a law meant to protect the public is not working as intended, is unjust, and may be hurting efforts to keep communities healthy, common solutions must be found to better meet public health and public safety goals.
One step is to educate members of state and local justice systems to ensure they understand the scientific and medical data and public health goals.
HIV Criminalization Reform Options
- Repeal outdated HIV criminalization laws, or
- Modernize HIV criminalization laws, or
- Deprioritize HIV criminalization through specific or general criminal statutes, or
- If the former options are not feasible, use current scientific and medical evidence when applying existing HIV criminalization laws, or general criminal statutes used to criminalize the action taken by people with HIV.
Since 2014, at least 12 states have either modernized or repealed their HIV criminalization laws to make them align with current scientific evidence. California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington have modernized their laws. Illinois and New Jersey repealed their laws.
Source of original article: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) / HIV (tools.cdc.gov).
The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views or opinion of Global Diaspora News (www.GlobalDiasporaNews.com).
To submit your press release: (https://www.GlobalDiasporaNews.com/pr).
To advertise on Global Diaspora News: (www.GlobalDiasporaNews.com/ads).
Sign up to Global Diaspora News newsletter (https://www.GlobalDiasporaNews.com/newsletter/) to start receiving updates and opportunities directly in your email inbox for free.
