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1 Nathan Cisneros & Brad Sears, Enforcement of HIV Criminalization in Kentucky 1 (2021)

handle is hein.lgbtqwi/eohck0001 and id is 1 raw text is: School of Law Williams Institute ENFORCEMENT OF NAUTHORS: Nathan Cisneros Brad Sears HIV CRIMINALIZATION in Kentucky BRIEF / DECEMBER 2021 OVERVIEW The Williams Institute analyzed data from the state of Kentucky about individuals who came into contact with Kentucky's criminal system through allegations of HIV-related offenses. The analysis shows that - Crimes related to sex work accounted for the vast majority (97%) of all of Kentucky's HIV-related arrests. Women in general, and white women in particular, are heavily overrepresented in Kentucky's HIV-related arrests, accounting for nearly two-thirds (62%) of the total. - Enforcement is geographically concentrated: on a per-capita basis, Kenton County in Northern Kentucky had about eight times more HIV-related arrests than Jefferson County, the state's most populous county. Northern Kentucky is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area and has historically been a site for Cincinnati's sex work industry. BACKGROUND HIV criminalization is a term used to describe statutes that either criminalize otherwise legal conduct or that increase the penalties for illegal conduct based upon a person's HIV-positive status.' HIV is criminalized in Kentucky through both HIV-specific laws and the state's general criminal laws. Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 529.090(3) & (4) creates a Class A misdemeanor for a person who engages in prostitution if that person has a positive non-STD test, and a Class D felony for a person living with HIV who engages in prostitution likely to transmit the human immunodeficiency virus and who, prior to the commission of the crime, had tested positive 1 Dini Harsono, Carol Galletly, Elaine O'Keffe, & Zita Lazzarini. Criminalization of HIV Exposure: A Review of Empirical Studies in the United States. AIDS and Behavior 21, no. 1 (2017): 27-50.