Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes discourses of 'criminalization' in relation to HIV transmission and infection. Debates about criminalizing HIV transmission illustrate points of intersection between medicine and law, exemplifying a contemporary biopolitics of ‘responsibilization.’

Paper long abstract:

A global debate is underway regarding the application of law -- criminal, civil, or public health -- to unique instances of HIV transmission as well as to the larger problem of controlling HIV incidence in populations. In some settings, existing statutes, such as the UK's 19th-Century 'offenses to the person act', are used to punish individuals who transmit HIV. In others, states are enacting new HIV-specific laws, such as Kenya's 2006 Sexual Offenses Act and its HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act, which both included provisions criminalizing HIV transmission. Meanwhile, international HIV/AIDS advocacy and human rights organizations issue briefs opposing these measures, even as on-going prosecutions garner headlines. While advocates for the criminalization of HIV transmission seek to punish harmful conduct and thereby deter risk taking, opponents fear that prosecutions will be sought against HIV+ people already rendered vulnerable to stigma and discrimination, exacerbating inequality and hampering prevention efforts. The debate illustrates points of intersection or the between discourses of medicine and law, exemplifying a contemporary biopolitics of 'responsibilization' (Rose 2006; cf. 'judicialization' in Biehl 2008). However, insofar as opponents of criminalization argue that such measures are at cross purposes with the aims of public health, they reinscribe the biopolitical premises underlying the application of punitive law to HIV infections. Law comes to govern the morality of infection, a model of and model for the everyday ethics people may bring to bear on their sexual relations with each other.