Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Public health programs prevent HIV through the systematic deployment of interventions designed to change the behaviors that pose the highest risk to the population. Although criminal law is sometimes a useful public health tool, as against HIV it has been applied to a small number of randomly identified cases to punish and deter wrongdoing through action taken against individuals deemed morally culpable. Neither theory nor experience supports the belief that criminal penalties can reduce the rate of HIV's spread.