By Linda M. Dixon, MCJ, Director of Health Justice
Today, February 28, 2026, HIV Is Not A Crime Awareness Day, we must reckon with an uncomfortable truth: Mississippi’s HIV laws are not making us safer; they are doing the exact opposite.
The laws meant to address HIV in Mississippi are outdated and written in the early 2000s, during a time with language that insighted fear and misinformation about AIDS and HIV. In the decades since, science and medicine have transformed our understanding of HIV and what proper prevention and treatment look like, yet our laws are stuck in a time when the science did not add up. Mississippi’s current HIV laws discourage testing, and when people don’t get tested, they don’t get into treatment.
Mississippi ranks 7th in the nation for thehighest new HIV diagnosis rates compared with other states, with the city of Jackson having one of the highest HIV rates in the country. These are not just statistics; they represent real people and real families bearing the weight of a public health crisis that our own laws are making worse.
The burden falls hardest on Black Mississippians, and no honest conversation about HIV criminalization in Mississippi can ignore race. Black Mississippians are disproportionately impacted by both HIV and the legal system. These two realities compound each other in devastating ways. Criminalization does not exist in a vacuum. It interacts with structural barriers to healthcare access, systemic distrust of the medical and legal systems born from generations of harm, and the concentrated poverty that limits access to treatment and prevention resources.
On HIV is Not a Crime Awareness Day, We Call for Change
Mississippi does not have to lead the nation in HIV rates. It does not have to be defined by laws written at a time when we knew nothing about the best way to prevent and treat HIV so people can live full and healthy lives.
We call on Mississippi lawmakers to modernize our HIV laws. We call on communities to get educated, get tested, and get engaged. And we call on all of us to recognize that when we protect the health and dignity of people with HIV, we protect the health of our entire state.
HIV is not a crime. It’s time our laws reflect that truth.