While you may assume that these kinds of arrests don’t actually happen, in December 2017, an HIV-positive man was arrested in Gibson, Louisiana, for spitting in his roommate’s face during an argument and now faces up to 10 years and jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted for intentionally exposing the woman to HIV.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 26 states have laws that criminalize HIV exposure in 2018. In 19 states, an HIV-infected person was required to disclose their status to their sexual partners. Twelve states require disclosure of HIV status to needle-sharing partners, and several states still criminalize various behaviors that have little to no risk of transmitting HIV.
Many of the HIV laws currently in place were enacted by legislatures who are simply out of touch with the fast-advancing sciences, failing to grasp—or adamantly refusing to accept—the most basic principles of transmission or risk. In other states, the laws reflect an active bias against women (criminalizing the sex worker but not the client), against men (defining exposure as the presence of semen), or against prison populations (prosecuting actions that the general public would never be penalized for).
HIV Criminal Laws by State
The following guide is meant to provide a brief overview of the HIV-specific laws of each state, and should not be used as a legal reference. The list does not include laws or statutes that pertain to transmission of a communicable disease, which in some states can also be punishable by a fine and/or prison sentence. A complete, updated Registry of State HIV Laws is available online from the CDC.
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