The Law

Arkansas’s HIV criminalization law was written in 1989 and has never been updated to reflect modern science or medicine. Here’s why it needs to change.

The laws are not based on the science
  • Arkansas’s law punishes behavior that poses no or negligible risk of HIV transmission, such as sex with a condom or while on effective treatment.
  • The law incorrectly assumes an HIV diagnosis is a “death sentence,” when in reality it is a manageable medical condition. A person on effective treatment can have a near-normal life expectancy.1
The laws do not promote public health
  • There is no evidence that HIV criminal laws promote public health by increasing disclosure, HIV testing, or safer sex. The laws have had zero impact on rates of HIV diagnosis.2
  • HIV criminal laws harm marginalized communities already disproportionately affected by HIV, including people of color and LGBTQ people.
  • By singling out a single disease, Arkansas’s law stigmatizes people living with HIV, which undercuts an effective response to the epidemic.
HIV criminal laws are costly
  • Arkansas spends about $372 million a year on prisons, at a cost of over $20,000 per inmate. Money spent incarcerating people under HIV criminal laws would be better spent on prevention and on supporting the over 5,000 Arkansans living with HIV.3
The laws are unfair and stigmatizing
  • A person living with HIV can face up to 30 years in prison for not disclosing their status before consensual sex, even when they intended no harm, there was no risk of harm, and no harm resulted. That is harsher than the maximum for negligent homicide or first-degree stalking.
  • A felony record in Arkansas means restrictions on voting, serving on a jury, holding public office, and access to benefits like public housing.4
  • People prosecuted under this law may also be required to register as sex offenders.5
Leading public health and legal experts agree the laws must change
  • Laws like Arkansas’s are opposed by public health and criminal justice experts, including NASTAD (the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL).
  • The U.S. Department of Justice has recommended that states like Arkansas reexamine their HIV criminal laws to align with current evidence and “consider whether the laws are the best vehicle to achieve their intended purpose.”6
Join the Movement
  1. Hasina Samji et al., Closing the Gap: Increases in Life Expectancy Among Treated Individuals in the United States and Canada, 8 PLoS One 1 (2013). ↩︎
  2. Patricia Sweeney & Simone Gray, Association of HIV diagnosis rates and laws criminalizing HIV exposure in the United States, 31 AIDS 1483 (2017). ↩︎
  3. Vera Institute of Justice, The Price of Prisons (2017); AIDSVu, Arkansas Highlights (2014). ↩︎
  4. Council of State Governments, National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Convictions (2017). ↩︎
  5. Ark. Code Ann. § 12-12-903(13)(A)(i)(p) (2017). ↩︎
  6. U.S. Department of Justice, Best Practices Guide to Reform HIV-Specific Criminal Laws (2014). ↩︎