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1 Nathan Cisneros, et al., HIV Criminalization and Black Americans 1 (2026)

handle is hein.lgbtq/hivcznbck0001 and id is 1 raw text is: School of Law Williams Institute HIV CRIMINALIZATION AND BLACK AMERICANS BRIEF / February 2026 Nathan Cisneros, Jordan Grasso, Brad Sears In the United States, HIV criminalization intersects two overlapping epidemics: the HIV epidemic and the epidemic of over-policing and mass incarceration. Both epidemics disproportionately affect Black Americans, as does HIV criminalization. Black people in the United States are more likely to be diagnosed and live with HIV while also having less access to HIV treatment and prevention. Black Americans also experience greater police surveillance and harsher punishment in the criminal legal system. Together, these twin epidemics place Black people in the U.S. living with HIV at increased risk of criminal legal system involvement because of both their race and HIV status. In this brief, we present information on the racial dynamics of America's HIV epidemic and criminal legal system, followed by an examination of racial patterns from Williams Institute reports on HIV criminalization.' BLACK AMERICANS AND THE DUAL EPIDEMICS Black Americans and the HIV Epidemic About 1.2 million people in the United States aged 13 and older were living with HIV at the end of 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).2 Today, for many, HIV can be managed with medications,3 which can also prevent HIV transmission. Despite these advances, substantial racial inequalities in HIV prevention and treatment persist. Black Americans are more likely than any other race/ethnicity to be living with HIV or newly diagnosed with HIV. • In 2023, Black Americans accounted for about 38% of new HIV diagnoses and 39% of people living with HIV, despite representing approximately 12% of the U.S. population.4 The HIV diagnosis rate 1 Several scholars have documented the racial dimensions of HIV criminalization in the United States. See for example Hoppe, T. A. (2015). Disparate risks of conviction under Michigan's felony HIV disclosure law: An observational analysis of convictions and H IV diagnoses, 1992-2010. Punishment & Society, 17(1), 73-93; Hoppe, T. (2017). Punishing disease: HIV and the criminalization ofsickness. Univ of California Press; Esparza, R. (2019). Black bodies on lockdown: AIDS moral panic and the criminalization of HIV in times of white injury. The Journal ofAfrican American History, 104(2), 250-280; Mykhalovskiy, E., Sanders, C., Hastings, C., & Bisaillon, L. (2021). Explicitly racialised and extraordinarily over-represented: Black immigrant men in 25 years of news reports on HIV non-disclosure criminal cases in Canada. Culture, health & sexuality, 23(6), 788-803. 2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Estimated HIV incidence and prevalence in the United States, 2018-2022 (H IV Survei[lance Supplemental Report, Vol. 29 No. 1). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/156513/cdc_156513_DS1.pdf 3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Living with HIV. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https:!wwdw.cc.gov/hiv/living- with/index.html 4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). HIV Surveillance Report figures, 2023. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https:// www.cdc.Lov/hiv-data/media/files/2025/04/hiv surv reD fieures 2023.Drtx