USA: New Williams Institute report analyses three decades of HIV criminalisation prosecutions in Michigan

Enforcement of HIV Criminalization in Michigan

Using data obtained from the Criminal History Record database maintained by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center, this study examines the enforcement of HIV nondisclosure laws from 1991 to 2024.

Executive Summary

Michigan’s HIV criminal laws date back to the 1980s, and it is the state with the first known conviction under an HIV criminalization law. The Williams Institute analyzed data from 1991 to 2024 from the state of Michigan regarding individuals with criminal cases alleging HIV nondisclosure under Michigan Compiled Laws § 333.5210 in the state’s penal code. Records were obtained from the state’s Criminal History Record database maintained by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center. These records contained information on 90 cases that resulted in misdemeanor or felony convictions or were pending outcomes for a felony charge at the time of the data request and contained at least one HIV-related nondisclosure charge.

General Findings

• Between 1991 and 2024, there were at least 90 cases involving 79 people and 116 HIV-related criminal charges involving HIV nondisclosure in Michigan.
  • In all, 74 cases resulted in conviction on an HIV-related offense. These cases involved 68 people and 109 separate HIV-related charges.
  • Nine people are awaiting a decision for a current HIV-related felony charge.
• While enforcement of the HIV nondisclosure law occurred across Michigan, prosecutions were primarily concentrated in four counties.
  • Cases were concentrated in four counties in the Southeast Lower Peninsula region around the Metro Detroit area. Wayne County—home to Detroit—accounted for 16% of all HIV-related criminal cases, followed by Macomb County (7%), Washtenaw County (7%), and Oakland County (4%). Together they comprised one-third (34%) of all HIV-related cases in the state, but two-thirds (67%) of people living with HIV (PLWH) in the state.
    • While Wayne County was home to 42% of the state’s PLWH, it recorded only 16% of the state’s HIV nondisclosure cases.
• Men were overwhelmingly represented among individuals in the HIV-related cases analyzed, accounting for 85% of people with HIV-related cases in Michigan. Men were about 77% of PLWH in Michigan.
• When looking across race categories, Black (46%) and white (53%) Michiganders made up roughly equal shares of people criminalized.
  • However, Black people in Michigan accounted for 14% of the state’s population and 53% of PLWH in the state. White Michiganders, by contrast, made up 78% of the population and 34% of PLWH in the state.
  • As a result, Black people in Michigan are overrepresented when compared to their share of the state’s overall population, while white people in Michigan are overrepresented compared to their share of the state’s population of PLWH.
    • Black men made up only 7% of Michigan’s population, yet 40% of PLWH, and they account for 43% of individuals convicted or with pending HIV-related cases.
    • White men comprised 41% and white women 13% of those convicted or with pending cases, despite representing only 29% and 4% of PLWH, respectively.
    • Although Black women make up 8% of Michigan’s population and 13% of PLWH, they account for only 1% of convictions or pending cases.

2019 Legislative Reform

• In 2019, Michigan reformed its HIV-related nondisclosure law. Before the reform, nondisclosure of HIV status before any form of “sexual penetration,” including oral sex, was criminalized. The reform narrowed the scope of criminalized behaviors to anal and vaginal intercourse. It required either 1) intent to transmit HIV to an intimate partner, 2) actual HIV transmission, or 3) reckless disregard for transmission risk to sustain a conviction.
  • Prosecutions continued post-reform: since enactment of the 2019 legal change, there have been at least 11 HIV-related nondisclosure cases involving 30 individual HIV-related nondisclosure charges.
    • However, there appears to be a recent decline in enforcement. There were nine HIV-related cases between 2020 and 2024 (the five years after the law was reformed) compared to 23 HIV-related cases between 2014 and 2018 (the five years before the law was reformed).
  • Ten charges under the reformed law have resulted in a conviction. All but two were for reckless disregard (a misdemeanor offense); one was for felony intent to transmit, and one appeared to be under the pre-reform statute, although the final court disposition came after the law went into effect.
    • There have been no convictions of actual transmission of HIV (a felony) under the new law.
  • Another 10 charges are awaiting a final disposition under the new law: nine for alleged intent to transmit and one for alleged misdemeanor reckless disregard.

Other Findings

• Between 1991 and 2024, the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center, which maintains the state’s Criminal History Record database, did not identify any records in response to our data request documenting convictions under Michigan’s law that criminalizes PLWH for donating blood.
• Further, between 1991 and 2024, the data provided by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center included no mandatory testing charges that resulted in a conviction for that charge, and no convictions stemming from a mandatory testing charge have occurred since 2008.

Download the full report