NCJ Number
117971
Date Published
1988
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This report analyzes the policy, legal, and constitutional issues raised by State and Federal proposals to impose criminal penalties on certain AIDS carriers and to require AIDS testing of certain criminal offenders.
Abstract
The introduction provides an overview of the AIDS problem by describing the nature of AIDS and the AIDS virus and summarizing the Nation's responses to it to date. In discussing the use of criminal penalties to limit the behavior of AIDS carriers, the first chapter summarizes the general policy issues raised by the use of criminal penalties in the context of a disease such as AIDS. It also describes and analyzes the ways in which prosecutors have used or might use current criminal laws to respond to behavior perceived as likely to expose others to the AIDS virus. The chapter describes and analyzes a variety of legislative proposals that would make it a crime to transmit the AIDS virus or expose others to it. Chapter 2 discusses the use of mandatory AIDS testing to identify criminal offenders who are carriers of the AIDS virus. After summarizing the general policy issues raised by these mandatory testing programs, it describes the mandatory testing programs that have been proposed or adopted to date and analyzes the constitutional issues raised by some of these programs. 82 footnotes.