Criminalized Lives

Reviews / Votes

"Eye-opening. . . . An unforgettable chronicle." (Literary Review of Canada) "Weaving firsthand accounts and meaningful research, McClelland goes beyond state laws and click-bait headlines to underscore the human impact of criminalization." (POZ) "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) "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))