On Wednesday, U.S. Representative Mark Pocan, along with 9 other members of Congress, introduced the HIV is Not a Crime Awareness Day Resolution, which would formally recognize February 28 as HIV Is Not A Crime (HINAC) Awareness Day. This awareness day is a global call to action to end the criminalization of people living with HIV and align public policy with modern science and human rights. 

The resolution supports modernization or repeal of HIV criminalization laws, promotes medically accurate education, and calls for strengthened investment in prevention, treatment and care. It also signals growing federal recognition that punitive approaches sabotage public health outcomes and deepen racial and gender inequities.

Tami Haught, Co-Executive Director of Sero Project, explains: “The resolution affirms that ending HIV criminalization is a matter of racial and gender justice, explicitly recognizing that Black and brown communities, Black women, and transgender women are disproportionately targeted, prosecuted, and harmed by laws rooted in stigma, racism, sexism, and transphobia rather than science or public health evidence.” 

Today, 32 states continue to enforce HIV-specific criminal statutes, and 27 impose enhanced penalties based on the fact that a person is living with HIV. Despite more than four decades of medical advancement, including PrEP, PEP, and treatment that renders HIV undetectable and untransmittable (U=U), these laws remain dangerously outdated. They do not reduce HIV transmission—they undermine public health goals. Ending criminalization is central to affirming the human rights of people living with HIV and ending the HIV epidemic. 

As Marnina Miller, Positive Women’s Network-USA Co-Executive Director, brilliantly puts it: "HIV criminalization has never been about safety. It has been about control, surveillance, and punishment rooted in racism, misogyny, and fear. People living with HIV deserve care, autonomy, and dignity, not punishment.”

The Health Not Prisons Collective, a national movement network advancing HIV decriminalization through policy reform, legal advocacy, narrative change, and grassroots organizing, applauds the introduction of this resolution as a necessary federal acknowledgment that criminalization is structural discrimination, not public health policy.

As with all progress related to HIV, it is thanks to the meaningful involvement of our community that we have reached this moment. As Co-Chair of the United States People Living With HIV Caucus, Michael Elizabeth has seen this up close: “As we observe the significance of this resolution, I want to honor Ronald Johnson. Thanks to his leadership, 70,000 people living with HIV in Maryland are no longer vulnerable to criminalization. He is a clear example of why people living with HIV must lead campaigns that affect our lives.” 

Together, we will abolish HIV criminalization.