New state laws requiring the registration and tracking of sex crime perpetrators that carry the HIV virus are well-intentioned but seriously flawed, the Davis County Health Board was told this week.
The new laws, HB24 and HB151, require that persons convicted of prostitution, soliciting prostitution and various types of sexual assault be tested for the HIV virus before being sentenced.Their health status is then included in the presentence information used by a judge to determine their disposition.
If they are found to be positive for the virus or for AIDS, the local health department must counsel them about the disease and any subsequent sex-related charge is automatically a felony, according to Geoffrey Wertzberger of the state Health Department.
But the statute's requirements that local law enforcement agencies conduct the blood testing and maintain the files, especially the confidential medical information, create a burden, according to Lt. Dave Boucher of the Davis County Sheriff's Department.
Boucher, a county corrections officer, said crimes like prostitution are misdemeanors, like getting a traffic citation. Prostitutes are rarely jailed and it's even rarer that they make a formal court appearance, he said.
Boucher said he can't remember when a defendant charged with prostitution was actually jailed in Davis County, much less held long enough for the required blood and lab tests.
"Usually, especially in Salt Lake with its jail overcrowding, they're issued a citation and come to the court clerk's window and pay it off, like a traffic violation," Boucher told the health board.
State and local regulations mandating that a person's health records are confidential conflict with the new requirements that the HIV/AIDS test results be maintained in a defendant's file, along with positive fingerprint and photo identifications that are made available to court, corrections and other law enforcement agencies, he said.
The law was written with no input from local health or law enforcement agencies, Boucher said.
The health board agreed the laws are flawed and will urge their amendment through the state association of local health agencies in the next session.