Race, Justice, and HIV : Visions for a Society without Bars

This edited volume brings together perspectives from scholars, lawyers, and activists to examine the HIV justice movement in present day – particularly the push to abolish HIV criminalization.


As debates around reform versus abolition have electrified political discourse surrounding public safety, surveillance, and funding for law enforcement, contributors to this volume provide an intervention in public policy and grassroots organizing in an age of increased repression. Although the chance of passing on HIV is now zero when the viral load is suppressed, there are still currently 34 U.S. states that criminalize HIV exposure, using laws that were implemented early on in the epidemic due to stigma and bias. As surveillance technologies and the interconnectedness of public health and law enforcement increase, contributors argue, so do new dangers in the carceral state.


Ultimately, this book provides a racial justice lens for analyzing and understanding HIV criminalization and speaks to the continued reckoning in the United States around issues of racial justice and the role of racism in public health and mass incarceration. Readers will be left with a vision of the movement’s future and an archive of the HIV decriminalization movement that captures the deepest desires and sacred visions of those who have defiantly resisted.