Punishing Disease : HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness

From the very beginning of the epidemic, AIDS was linked to punishment. Calls to punish people living with HIV—mostly stigmatized minorities—began before doctors had even settled on a name for the disease. Punishing Disease looks at how HIV was transformed from sickness to badness under the criminal law and investigates the consequences of inflicting penalties on people living with disease. Now that the door to criminalizing sickness is open, what other ailments will follow? With moves in state legislatures to extend HIV-specific criminal laws to include diseases such as hepatitis and meningitis, the question is more than academic. « From the very beginning of the epidemic, AIDS was linked to punishment. Calls to punish people living with HIV, mostly stigmatized minorities, began before doctors had even settled on a name for the disease. Punishing Disease looks at how HIV was transformed from sickness to badness under the criminal law and investigates the consequences of inflicting penalties on people living with disease. Now that the door to criminalizing sickness is open, what other ailments will follow? With moves in state legislatures to extend HIV-specific criminal laws to include diseases such as hepatitis and meningitis, the question is more than academic. »-- Résumé de l'éditeur Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. Punishment: AIDS in the Shadow of an American Institution Part One. Punitive Disease Control 1. Controlling Typhoid Mary 2. “HIV Stops with Me” 3. The Public Health Police Part Two. The Criminalization of Sickness 4. Making HIV a Crime 5. HIV on Trial 6. Victim Impact Conclusion. Punishing Disease Appendix 1. Methods: On Analyzing the Anatomy of a Social Problem Appendix 2. State HIV Bills Notes Index At the heart of 'Punishing Disease' is a central question: Why punishment? Although public health and medical institutions are designed to manage epidemics and viruses, punishment as an institution is built to manage crime. The tools designed for one job - pills versus handcuffs, hospitals versus prisons - are not effective for the other. The tool for punishing deviance is a hammer ill-suited for managing disease