Researchers and interventionists dealing with the health of marginalized populations have long recognized certain basic facts about the law in public health:

• law often determines what sort of programs are available (e.g., HIV testing, needle exchange, treatment availability, 100% condom campaigns)
• law influences the behavior of people at risk – it can create an enabling environment for prevention, but it can also increase risk
• “law on the books” is often very different from “law on the streets” – good policies don’t always make for good practices

Practices can often be changed to promote health in particular places even if national laws on the books cannot be addressed.

From legal sociology and implementation research, RPAR takes the insight that the laws written down in books, and the formal policies of agencies that administer laws, are usually quite different from the law as it is actually applied by law enforcement agents on the streets. For all people subject to law, and particularly legally vulnerable people (those who lack the social and economic resources to shield themselves from the eye and arm of law enforcement), law on the streets is the real law.  Commonly, even healthful changes in formal policies take a long time to actually be implemented on the streets, if they ever are. Those who advocate for formal policy change need to be conscious of and informed about these implementation barriers.

Last Updated: February 2006