Aligning Criminal Justice and HIV Prevention: From Conflict To Synergy
Improving the Integration of Law Enforcement and
Public Health Efforts Targeting Drug Use
Summit Home
Synergizing criminal justice with public health promises to improve health outcomes, free up capacity to fight violent crime, and lead to other public benefits including cost-savings to the taxpayer. The February 2009 event "Aligning Criminal Justice and HIV Prevention" will focus on one aspect of this larger agenda: The development of evidence-based tools to help integration of police and public health efforts aimed at high-risk populations engaged in drug use.
Policymakers are increasingly heeding the evidence that public health prevention initiatives like needle exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV and provide a bridge to treatment. Based on statements from the incoming federal administration, the number and scope of these initiatives will expand dramatically in the near future. However, history shows that such initiatives have faced opposition and active resistance from police, whose enforcement practices can severely limit the public health benefits of these programs. At the same time, ground-level officers rarely receive adequate training and resources to reduce occupational risks related to needle stick injuries and exposure to communicable diseases.
In 2003, the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS held a miniconference entitled Public Health, Research and Law Enforcement: The Case for HIV/AIDS Prevention. That meeting clearly demonstrated that public health impact of policing was an area requiring research and intervention development. In the intervening years, efforts to align public health and policing have been growing, both domestically and internationally. However, despite the urgency of the marked need, these initiatives have remained marginal and decisively under-resourced. Lack of empirical research on these initiatives is one of several factors that limit their dissemination potential.
To address these needs, the 2009 Summit will convene practitioners from the policing and public health sectors to share experiences and ideas with academic researchers and funders in a setting designed to produce a concrete agenda for research and intervention activities. Specifically, the aims of this event will be to:
- assess the ongoing efforts and progress made on researching and harmonizing the role of policing in HIV prevention;
- identify steps for further research, evaluation, and programmatic action; and
- operationalize a roadmap for future effort.
Public health-policing collaboration on issues that cut across health and safety is already occurring. Recently, the sudden rise in the number of fentanyl-related drug overdoses forced public health and drug enforcement agencies to collaborate on the implementation of surveillance and intervention initiatives. Correctional facilities across the United States and elsewhere are increasingly integrating public health and health services functions into their operations. These and other instances of police-public health collaboration present useful precedent and opportunity to translate lessons learned into the HIV prevention.
This event is funded by grant number P30 MH 62294 from National Institute of Mental Health for the support of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (P.I. Paul Cleary, Ph.D.)
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Thursday, 12/03
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Speaker: Nabila El-Bassel, Columbia University
Title: HIV Among Drug Users in Kazakhstan: Driving Forces and Implications for HIV Prevention & Treatment
Location: CHIP, 2006 Hillside Rd Unit 1248, Storrs, CT
Video Conference: CIRA, Ste. 200, Rm. 202, 135 College St, New Haven, CT
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