HIV/AIDS

09/20/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

"Y'all Will Not Walk My Halls and Spread HIV."

By Steve Gosset, ACLU at 10:09am

For 25 years, the ACLU has been a forceful advocate to end discrimination against prisoners living with HIV. We've worked to end their segregation from the rest of the prison population and ensure they are afforded access to vital services and programs.

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09/17/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

Fear and Loathing Over HIV Must End in Alabama Prisons

By Amanda Goad, LGBT Project at 11:00am

You can’t catch HIV from a toilet seat.

You can’t catch HIV from kitchen utensils.

You can’t catch HIV from everyday contact with the people around you. 

Old news, right? In fact, all of those points were made in Understanding AIDS, the health information pamphlet mailed to every American household by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in 1988. But apparently the message was lost on folks at the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). 

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09/13/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

A Policy of Shame: the Fight to End HIV Segregation in Prison Continues

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project at 10:01am

Alabama segregates all prisoners with HIV, and houses them separately from all other prisoners – it’s an HIV ghetto.  As soon as you walk into Limestone Correctional Facility, the prison where Alabama houses all male prisoners with HIV, you know who has the virus:  they are forced to wear a white armband day and night.  

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05/16/2013
HIV/AIDS

It Is Time to Modernize Discriminatory HIV/AIDS Laws

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Steven Waddy, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 4:55pm

While science has vastly advanced since the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic more than 30 years ago, the ways in which many criminal laws treat people living with HIV look like throwbacks to the dark days of the past when fear and misinformation about HIV and how it is transmitted were rampant.

There are presently 32 states that have criminal laws that punish people for exposing another person to HIV, even in the absence of actual HIV transmission or even a meaningful risk that transmission could occur.

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12/21/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

VICTORY! Henderson et al. v. Thomas et al.

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project at 3:01pm

Today a federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama entered a historic decision in the quarter-century-old fight for equality for prisoners living with HIV.   It’s the culmination of a month-long trial in a class-action lawsuit by the ACLU that put Alabama’s discriminatory and dehumanizing treatment of prisoners with HIV under a national spotlight.

Driven by stubborn prejudice and willful ignorance, Alabama has been categorically excluding prisoners with HIV from a host of rehabilitative, educational, trade skills and vocational programs—even barring those with serious mental health needs and substance abuse problems from critically important treatment programs.  Alabama houses them in HIV-only dormitories, and forces all male prisoners with HIV to wear a white wrist-band night and day—a latter-day yellow star.

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12/21/2012
HIV/AIDS Discrimination in Prisons

There is so Much More to us Than Just Being HIV-Positive

By Dana Harley at 12:54pm

I entered a system that stated in its mission statement that I would be rehabilitated and prepared for society upon my return. That is so far from the truth. I have been subjected to a system that belittled me and literally made fun of me and my illness. There were times when I felt less than human.

I am hopeful that Judge Thompson’s decision will dramatically change the misconceptions about HIV. We are human beings and we deserve to be treated as such. It is true that I am a convicted felon and I have been sentenced to do my time, but being HIV-positive in the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) system has convicted me twice.

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12/01/2012
HIV/AIDS

Living with HIV in an Alabama Prison

By Albert Knox at 10:14am

In 2011, the ACLU and the ACLU of Alabama sued the Alabama Department of Corrections for discrimination against inmates living with HIV. Alabama is one of only two states, along with South Carolina, that continue to segregate inmates living with HIV in separate housing units and otherwise restrict their access to prison programs.  We are awaiting a decision. You can read more about it here.

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09/14/2012
Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:27pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history.

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07/27/2012
Defense of Marriage Act

ACLU Urges Critical LGBT and HIV/AIDS Updates to 2012 Democratic National Platform

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:20pm

The ACLU has been invited to offer our civil liberties and civil rights recommendations to the Democratic National Committee’s “platform drafting committee,” which is currently meeting in Minneapolis to begin the process of putting together the 2012 Democratic National Platform. While the ACLU is a nonpartisan organization, we welcome opportunities to infuse a respect for and commitment to civil liberties in the political process. We would also be pleased to offer our views to the Republican National Committee’s platform drafters. 

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07/23/2012
HIV/AIDS

AIDS Conference 2012 – ACLU Continues Fighting to “Turn the Tide Together”

By Patrick DePoy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:16am

This week, Washington will host the 2012 International AIDS Conference.  This is the first time since 1990 that the U.S. will host the major international gathering on the AIDS epidemic.  The reason for this is that in 1987, Congress passed legislation prohibiting people living with HIV from traveling into the United States.  Under the ban, those living with HIV were listed as having a “communicable disease of public health significance.”  Rooted in the fear and prejudice that was an ever-present reality in those days, the ban imposed an unfair burden on tourists, short-term visitors, and foreigners seeking to live in the U.S.   In 2009, President Obama finally lifted the travel ban, following a 2008 statutory repeal vote in Congress, correctly pointing out that if the U.S. wants to be a world leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, “we need to act like it.”  

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2/15/2012
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