I posted earlier that AIDS Denialist and LA Private Investigator Clark Baker is focusing his attention on the US Military justice system. Baker’s storefront business, the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ) is paid by US taxpayers to bring AIDS denialists to the court. How are AIDS Denialists used as experts in legal cases?
Professor Scott Burris writes about over-criminalsiation, appears in video summarising Carol Galletly's study
By Scott Burris The concept of “overcriminalization” is gaining traction across the political spectrum. The Heritage Foundation, which has a website devoted to the phenomenon, defines it as “the trend in America – and particularly in Congress – to use the criminal law to ‘solve’ every problem, punish every mistake (instead of making proper use of civil penalties), and coerce Americans into conforming their behavior to satisfy social engineering objectives.”
US: Study finds criminalising alleged HIV non-disclosure an ineffective HIV prevention tool
A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health by the leading US researcher into the impacts of HIV criminalisation, Carol Galletly J.D. and Ph.D., of the Center for AIDS Intervention Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, has concluded that a New Jersey law requiring individuals with HIV to disclose their HIV-positive status to their sexual partners does not appear to be an effective HIV prevention intervention.
In the article ‘New Jersey’s HIV Exposure Law and the HIV-Related Attitudes, Beliefs, and Sexual and Seropositive Status Disclosure Behaviors of a Sample of Persons Living with HIV’, Galletly and colleagues surveyed 479 HIV-positive New Jersey residents between March and October 2010 about the New Jersey law that requires HIV-positive individuals to disclose their status to sexual partners.
N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C: 34-5
A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if, knowing that he or she is infected with HIV, he or she commits an act of sexual penetration without the informed consent of the other person.
The study found that the law does not seem to be effective as an HIV prevention tool. Although 51 percent of study participants reported knowledge of the law, there was no difference between those aware and unaware of the law in terms of HIV disclosure, risky sex, and condom use. In fact, most of the participants reported complying with the letter of the law for the previous year regardless of whether they were aware of the law or not.
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| Study abstract |
An article by the CDC at thebody.com summarises additional findings on HIV-related stigma and perceptions of responsibility for HIV prevention.
Knowledge of the law was not associated with negative outcomes for HIV-infected study participants. Persons aware of the law did not report greater social hostility toward persons with HIV or experience more discomfort with HIV-status disclosure or more HIV-related stigma. On the other hand, those who were not aware of the law perceived more social hostility toward HIV-infected persons, experienced greater HIV-related stigma, and were less comfortable with HIV-status disclosure.
The 479 study participants, who were aged 19 to 66 years, were 45 percent female and were approximately 66 percent African American, 16 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent Caucasian. When the researchers questioned them about responsibility for HIV prevention, 90 percent believed that an HIV-infected person bore at least half of the responsibility for ensuring that their seronegative partners did not contract the disease through sex, and 34 percent felt the HIV-infected person had the full responsibility.
Given that there were no differences in behaviours or attitudes towards HIV disclosure, safer sex or responsibility for HIV prevention between those aware of the law or not, and the very high risk of human rights violations and miscarriages of justice in the application of HIV disclosure laws, the study’s findings strongly suggest that HIV-specific criminal statutes criminalising HIV non-disclosure without consideration of actual risk and harm, and proof of a suitably culpable state of mind are bad laws that should be repealed.
Love gone wrong shouldn't mean jail, says HIV-positive woman
The injustice of Jessica Whitbread’s situation hit her during a recent evening at a bar when there was dancing, drinks and a really hot guy who was obviously interested in her.
Plenary Session 1: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Introduction by Co-chairs, Brian West (EATG) and Silke Klumb (Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe)
– Edwin J Bernard (HIV Justice Network): HIV Criminalisation: Overviews of laws, policies and issues for consideration
– Christoph Hamelmann (UNDP): Global Commission on HIV and the Law (findings and recommendations)
– Susan Timberlake (UNAIDS): Forthcoming updated UNAIDS policy and guidance
– Ninoslav Mladenovic (EATG): EATG Policy Position Paper on HIV Criminalisation
– Q&A / discussion
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network.
Plenary Session 2: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Introduction by Co-chairs, Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe) and Lisa Power (Terrence Higgins Trust)
– Louis Gay (Norwegian HIV Patient Network): From accused to activist
– Kim Fangen (Norwegian Law Commission): Reforming the ‘HIV paragraph’ in Norway – lessons learned
– Matthew Weait (Professor of Law and Policy, Birkbeck College, University of London): Nordic advocacy research project – lessons learned
– Carsten Schatz (Board Member, DAH): DAH Position Paper – content and lessons learned
– Lucy Stackpool Moore (IPPF, London), Marielle Nakunzi (RFSU, Sweden) & Kevin Osborne (IPPF, London): ‘Criminalise Hate, Not HIV’: IPPF’s media strategy and advocacy approaches and lessons learned from Sweden
– Q&A / discussion
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network
Plenary Session 3: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Workshop Summaries
– Susan Timberlake (UNAIDS): Workshop 1 – How to advocate for prosecutorial guidelines
– Holger Wicht (DAH): Workshop 2 – Better laws through science (Austria/Germany/Switzerland)
– Lucy Stackpool-Moore (IPPF): Workshop 3 – Filling the evidence gaps
– Peter Wiessner (EATG): Workshop 4 – Understanding and creating linkages between HIV criminalisation and punitive laws and policies affecting key populations
Q&A Session
– Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe, Netherlands)
– Nikos Dedes (EATG, Greece)
– Arwel Jones (Crown Prosecutions Service, England & Wales)
– Petra Bayr (Parliamentarian, Austria)
– Timur Abdullaev (EATG, Uzbekistan)
Next steps
– Silke Klumb (DAH)
– Peter Wiessner (EATG)
– Kevin Osborne (IPPF)
– Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe)
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network
AIDS groups go after Ontario attorney general
A coalition of Ontario HIV/AIDS groups has launched a new phase of their campaign to compel the province’s Attorney General to stop prosecuting HIV-positive Ontarians for non-disclosure.
Overcoming HIV criminalisation together! (Press release)
This is an unofficial English translation of the press release: Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe: Overcoming HIV criminalisation together!
Berlin – An international conference on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived HIV exposure and non-intentional HIV transmission will take place at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 20th September. Well-known activists and experts – including from UNAIDS, the HIV/AIDS programme of the United Nations – will share the current legal situation in Europe and Central Asia, network with each other, and explore ways to ensure a more appropriate, rational, fair and just response to the issue.
Experts agree that the criminalisation of non-intentional HIV transmission, and sexual behaviour that risks HIV exposure or transmission, contributes to the spread of HIV. Even where people with HIV are legally obligated to disclose their HIV status prior to sexual encounters, this does not help to prevent infection, but harms HIV prevention.
Carsten Schatz, member of the Board of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, therefore argues that:
“Criminalisation runs against successful communication on prevention in Germany – that every person ought to be responsible for protecting themselves from HIV infection. The criminal law offender-victim logic is not suited to consensual sexual encounters. To place the entire responsibility for HIV prevention on the shoulders of persons with HIV contributes to their stigmatisation. Recent judgments and media reporting brand people with HIV as potential offenders. HIV criminalisation fosters fear and thereby jeopardises exactly what it is supposed to bring about: open communication about HIV prevention. It can also discourage people from seeking an HIV test since only those aware of their status can be prosecuted. Those who wish to limit new HIV infections to a minimum, should ensure that criminal law stays out of the matter.”
Morever, again and again, people are being prosecuted and punished despite there being no significiant risk of HIV transmission. Effective HIV treatment is now considered as reliable against HIV transmission as a condom. However, such scientific advances are rarely heard or regognised in German courts. In Germany, people with HIV, in line with established case law, have a duty to ensure the protection of the partner or to inform them about their HIV status.
Europe is second only to North America as the region with the most convictions. In recent years, some countries such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland have started to revise their legislation.
“These are encouraging signs“, says Edwin Bernard, project leader of the seminar and co-ordinator of the international HIV Justice Network and a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group. “In contrast, we are very concerned about developments in countries like Romania, which recently enacted an HIV-specific criminal law, or in Belgium, where new legal precedents were created allowing prosecutions for the first time. We are also hearing news about absurd and problematic trials for perceived HIV exposure in Austria. The conference is designed to help advocates move forward in these particularly repressive countries.”
The conference is taking place on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the European AIDS-Treatment Group (EATG). The meeting is co-organised with Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and HIV in Europe, a multi-stakerholders initiative exchange on activities to improve early diagnosis and earlier care of HIV across Europe.
The seminar will take place in English. Representative of the media may attend all three plenary sessions as well as workshop two about the legal situation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This workshop will take place in German.
Download the agenda and concept note (in English).
U.S. Positive Women's Network devastated by murder of HIV-positive woman in Dallas
The U.S. Positive Women’s Network (PWN), a national membership body of women living with HIV, is devastated to hear the tragic news that a young woman living with HIV in Dallas, Texas, was murdered for disclosing her HIV status to a partner. PWN calls for immediate action to eliminate HIV stigma and violence against women living with HIV.