Francis Leslie Pickering, Francis John G
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT USA.
Crim Law Philos. 2012;6(1):47-63. doi: 10.1007/s11572-011-9136-7. Epub 2011 Dec 10.
Statutes criminalizing behavior that risks transmission of HIV/AIDS exemplify use of the criminal law against individuals who are victims of infectious disease. These statutes, despite their frequency, are misguided in terms of the goals of the criminal law and the public health aim of reducing overall burdens of disease, for at least three important reasons. First, they identify individual offenders for punishment, a paradigm that is misplaced in the most typical contexts of transmission of infectious disease and even for HIV/AIDS, despite claims of AIDS exceptionalism. Second, although there are examples of individuals who transmit infectious disease in a manner that fits the criminal law paradigm of identification of individual offenders for deterrence or retribution, these examples are limited and can be accommodated by existing criminal laws not devoted specifically to infectious disease. Third, and most importantly, the current criminal laws regarding HIV/AIDS, like many other criminal laws applied to infectious disease transmission, have been misguided in focusing on punishment of the diseased individual as a wrongful transmitter. Instead of individual offenders, activities that enhance the scale of disease transmission-behaviors that might be characterized as 'transmission facilitation'-are a more appropriate target for the criminal law. Examples are trafficking in human beings (including sex trafficking, organ trafficking, and labor trafficking), suppression of information about the emergence of infection in circumstances in which there is a legally established obligation to disclose, and intentional or reckless activities to discourage disease treatment or prevention. Difficulties remain with justifications for criminalizing even these behaviors, however, most importantly the need for trust in reducing overall burdens of disease, problems in identifying individual responsible offenders, and potential misalignment between static criminal law and the changing nature of infectious disease.
将可能传播艾滋病毒/艾滋病的行为定为犯罪的法规，体现了刑法针对传染病受害者个人的运用。这些法规尽管频繁出现，但至少出于三个重要原因，在刑法目标和减轻总体疾病负担的公共卫生目标方面是错误的。首先，它们确定个体犯罪者进行惩罚，这种模式在传染病传播的最典型情况下是不恰当的，甚至对于艾滋病毒/艾滋病也是如此，尽管有艾滋病例外论的说法。其次，虽然有一些个人以符合确定个体犯罪者以进行威慑或报应的刑法模式的方式传播传染病的例子，但这些例子是有限的，并且可以由现有的并非专门针对传染病的刑法来处理。第三，也是最重要的，当前关于艾滋病毒/艾滋病的刑法，与许多其他适用于传染病传播的刑法一样，在将患病个体作为错误传播者进行惩罚方面受到了误导。刑法更合适的目标应该是那些增加疾病传播规模的活动——那些可能被描述为“传播促进”的行为，而不是个体犯罪者。例如人口贩运（包括性交易、器官贩运和劳动力贩运）、在有法定披露义务的情况下隐瞒感染出现的信息，以及故意或鲁莽地阻碍疾病治疗或预防的活动。然而，即使将这些行为定为犯罪也存在正当性方面的困难，最重要的是在减轻总体疾病负担方面需要信任、确定个体责任犯罪者存在问题，以及静态刑法与传染病不断变化的性质之间可能存在不一致。
