Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness

Dr. Trevor Hoppe

Friday, March 4, 2016 from 11am to 1pm

LHTS room 340 – Gay Becker Conference Room

Over the last thirty years, more than thirty states have enacted criminal laws specifically targeting people living with HIV. Most make it a crime for HIV-positive people to have sex without first disclosing their HIV-status, even if the sexual practices alleged could not possibly transmit the disease. Thousands have been imprisoned. As several states move to expand their HIV-specific laws to include other diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis, the criminal law appears poised to become a legitimate response to communicable disease in the United States. Based on an ongoing research project examining how HIV-specific criminal laws are enforced in the United States, this talk will examine the history of HIV-specific criminal laws as well as what specific communities are being impacted by these laws.

Trevor Hoppe is assistant professor of sociology at the University at Albany, SUNY. He holds a PhD in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan, where his dissertation research examined how health officials and law enforcement authorities enforced Michigan’s felony HIV disclosure law. Today’s talk is based on his current book project, “Punishing Disease,” which is under contract with University of California Press. He is also co-editor with David Halperin of a collection of essays on the criminalization of sex, “The War on Sex,” which is forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Hosted by: Mixed Methods Working Group at the University of California - San Francisco's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences