What is HIV Criminalization?

HIV criminalization means using laws and policies to punish people living with HIV for non-disclosure of status, perceived exposure to HIV, or transmission of the virus. Laws vary by state. Some punish oral, anal, or vaginal sex; exposure to saliva or blood; sharing needles; and donating organs, semen, blood, or breast milk.1 Many of these acts that are criminalized, like having sex with an undetectable viral load, spitting, or biting, don’t actually transmit HIV.2

By The Numbers

As of February 2025, 32 states have laws criminalizing alleged HIV exposure, non-disclosure, or transmission.3 Most were written in the late 1990s—based on fear, racism, transmisia, homophobia, and outdated science—but they’re still enforced today.4

No Harm, No Proof Needed

Most HIV criminalization laws don’t require proof that HIV was transmitted or that anyone meant to cause harm, just knowing your HIV status can be enough for a conviction.5 Even without HIV-specific laws, people have been charged under general laws like reckless endangerment, assault, or attempted homicide for alleged HIV exposure or non-disclosure. These laws stigmatize and discriminate against people living with HIV, punishing conduct that wouldn’t otherwise be a crime, or wouldn’t be punished so harshly.

Where Are We Now?

Like the rest of the criminal legal system, HIV criminalization is deeply rooted in anti-Black racism . Black and Latine people living with HIV are disproportionately investigated, prosecuted, and punished under these laws, with Black women, transgender women, and sex workers facing intersecting harms.6

Intimate partners can threaten to report a partner living with HIV to police, trapping them in unsafe relationships. People in abusive relationships may be forced to choose: disclose their status and risk violence, or stay silent and risk arrest for non-disclosure.

Even without a conviction, being charged can cost a person privacy, safety, child custody, and jobs. A felony conviction can mean losing assistance benefits, voting rights, and job opportunities. Five states force sex offense registration under HIV-specific laws, creating lifelong barriers to parenting, employment, and safety from harassment or violence.7

For immigrants living with HIV who are not citizens, contact with the criminal legal system, including through HIV criminalization, can trigger immigration investigations, detention, and deportation.8 Moreover, reports show that the increased policing of immigrant communities by ICE has led to disruptions in HIV care regardless of immigration status–another example of how the threat of criminalization undermines health and HIV prevention.9

Lashanda Salinas, one of PWN’s Tennessee members, has experienced HIV criminalization firsthand. You can listen to her story below. 

What Can Be Done?

  1. Support federal legislation to end HIV discrimination and incentivize states to repeal or modernize HIV criminalization laws.
  2. Treat drug use as a health issue, not a crime. End criminal penalties for drug use, remove barriers to jobs and housing for people with drug convictions, and invest in evidence-based and non-punitive harm reduction initiatives.
  3. Support sentencing reforms, such as the Smart Sentencing Adjustment Act, that rewards states for shrinking their prison populations; prohibits enacting punitive sentencing laws like mandatory minimums or truth in sentencing; and establishes funding for organizations led by or serving formerly incarcerated individuals.10
  1. Repeal or modernize state HIV criminalization laws. Removing or updating these outdated laws—which fuel stigma and undermine testing, treatment, and prevention—to align with modern science and human rights. A recent law change in Louisiana proves that HIV modernization is possible!11
  2. End unnecessary reporting and surveillance in healthcare. Health departments track HIV drug-resistance data to map transmission.12 This data can be misused in criminal or immigration legal matters.13 States should protect this data from police, courts, and immigration officials, require consent before collecting it, and end mandated reporting rules that scare people away from care.14
  3. Ban law enforcement from signing cooperation deals with ICE. These deals are known as 287(g) agreements and effectively turn state and local law enforcement into ICE agents.15 Information sharing and collaboration between police and ICE can further expose immigrants living with HIV, especially those who are Black, Brown, queer, transgender, or undocumented, to harassment, detention and deportation.16

Resources

Special Thanks To Our Contributors

  • Bee (Brandi) Velasquez
  • LaDawn Tate
  • Melanie A. Reese
  • Kneeshe Parkinson
  • Valerie Pinkston
  • Brooke Davidoff
  • Alyssa Crawford

And a huge shout out to our past intern Treasure Welle for writing our updated factsheets!

1: Amira Hasenbush, Ayako Miyashita, and Bianca D. M. Wilson. HIV Criminalization in California: Penal Implications for People Living with HIV/AIDS. Los Angeles: The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, and California HIV/AIDS Research Program, 2015. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/hiv-criminalization-ca-penal/.
2: Ibid
3: Center for HIV Law and Policy, “Mapping HIV Criminalization Laws in the U.S.” 2025. https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/maps
4: Movement Advancement Project and Center for HIV Law and Policy. LGBT Policy Spotlight: HIV Criminalization Laws. 2016. https://www.mapresearch.org/file/policy-spotlight-HIV-criminalization.pdf.
5: Movement Advancement Project and Center for HIV Law and Policy, LGBT Policy Spotlight: HIV Criminalization Laws.
6: HIV Racial Justice Now! A Declaration of Liberation: Building a Racially Just and Strategic Domestic HIV Movement. November 8, 2017. https://www.pwn-usa.org/old-policy-agenda/a-declaration-of-liberation-building-a-racially-just-and-strategic-domestic-hiv-movement/.
7: Center for HIV Law and Policy, “Mapping HIV Criminalization Laws in the U.S.,” August, 2026 https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/maps. 
8: “HIV Criminalization Against Immigrants in California,” Williams Institute, 2016, https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/HIVCriminalizationAgainstImmigrants.2016.pdf. See also, “Being Human is Not a Crime: HIV, Immigration, and State Violence,” The Center for HIV Law and Policy, February 2026, https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/news/being-human-not-crime-hiv-immigration-and-state-violence.
9: Mariam Davtyan and Toinette Frederick, Immigration enforcement and HIV care, The Lancet, July 2026, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhiv/article/PIIS2352-3018(26)00111-6/fulltext. See also, Sam Donndelinger and Cameron Oakes, Too Afraid to Leave Home: ICE’s Toll on Latino HIV Care, Uncloseted Media, March 2026, https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/too-afraid-to-leave-home-ices-toll.
10: Hernandez D. Stroud and Rosemary Nidiry, A Federal Agenda to Promote Safety and Justice (New York: Brennan Center for Justice, January 30, 2025), https://www.brennancenter.org/media/13673/download/2025_01_a-federal-agenda-to-promote-safety-and-justice-report-final_0.pdf?inline=1.
11: The Center for HIV Law and Policy, “Louisiana Enacts Significant Reform of HIV Exposure Law,” June 2, 2026, https://www.hivlawandpolicy.org/news/louisiana-enacts-significant-reform-hiv-exposure-law 
12: AIDS United, Molecular HIV Surveillance? (2022), https://aidsunited.org/molecular-hiv-surveillance/.
13: Ibid
14: Ibid
15: ACLU, “Deputized for Disaster: How President Trump’s Supersized 287(g) Deportation Force is a Powder Keg for Law Enforcement, Our Communities, and Our Democracy,” February 26, 2026, https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/ice-expanding-287g-agreements-police.
16: Center for American Progress, How Police Entanglement with Immigration Enforcement Puts LGBTQ Lives at Risk, April 2, 2017, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/police-entanglement-immigration-enforcement-puts-lgbtq-lives-risk/.