Criminalized Lives

HIV and Legal Violence

By Alexander McClelland; Illustrated by Eric Kostiuk Williams; Foreword by Robert Suttle

SERIES: Q+ Public

Rutgers University Press

Canada has been known as a hot spot for HIV criminalization where the act of not disclosing one’s HIV-positive status to sex partners has historically been regarded as a serious criminal offence. Criminalized Lives describes how this approach has disproportionately harmed the poor, Black and Indigenous people, gay men, and women in Canada. In this book, people who have been criminally accused of not disclosing their HIV-positive status, detail the many complexities of disclosure, and the violence that results from being criminalized.

Accompanied by portraits from artist Eric Kostiuk Williams, the profiles examine whether the criminal legal system is really prepared to handle the nuances and ethical dilemmas faced everyday by people living with HIV. By offering personal stories of people who have faced criminalization first-hand, Alexander McClelland questions common assumptions about HIV, the role of punishment, and the violence that results from the criminal legal system’s legacy of categorizing people as either victims or perpetrators.

Note: A regrettable error appears on page 22. The number 240 should be 206 when referring to the number of people prosecuted in relation to allegations of HIV nondisclosure. This will be fixed in future reprints.

Weaving firsthand accounts and meaningful research, McClelland goes beyond state laws and click-bait headlines to underscore the human impact of criminalization. POZ

Criminalized Lives is not merely a searing condemnation of how HIV laws ruin lives and remove people living with HIV from the 'public' in 'public health'; the book asks deep and urgent questions about how journalists, criminologists, and scholars are complicit in making vulnerable people’s lives become mediated by violence. Steven W. Thrasher, author of The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide

Criminalized Lives is a clearly written account of the impacts of HIV criminalization in Canada, the reasons it should end, and the work happening to end it. The book exposes how public health frameworks are used to implement state violence on targeted populations and makes a convincing case against limited reforms that carve out some populations for reduced criminalization while leaving others in the crosshairs of police and courts. It is a wonderful contribution to conversations about criminalization, health, HIV, and racial and gender justice. Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)

Powerful and important. . . . The book's moving interviews illustrate that criminal legal systems are unprepared to handle the nuances and ethical dilemmas faced everyday by people living with HIV. HIV Justice Network

ALEXANDER MCCLELLAND is an assistant professor at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also a member of the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization.

ERIC KOSTIUK WILLIAMS is a cartoonist and illustrator based in Toronto, Canada. He has several comics publications, including 2AM Eternal and Our Wretched Town Hall.

ROBERT SUTTLE is the chair of The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation Council of Justice Leaders, co-founded The Sero Project, and was recognized as a 2021 POZ 100 Honoree.

List of Illustrations
List of Acronyms
Series Introduction by E. G. Crichton
Preface
Foreword by Robert Suttle
Chapter 1: Bearing Witness to Violence
Chapter 2: The Making of a Case
Chapter 3: Institutions & Information
Chapter 4: A Typology of Violence
Chapter 5: Testimony
Chapter 6: Conclusion
Notes
Index

Related Titles