Women who use drugs are disproportionately impacted by incarceration. There are 200,000 women incarcerated in the US, a number that has increased seven-fold since 1980. Women of color are more likely to be incarcerated: Compared to white women, the rate of incarceration is 1.7 times higher for Black women and 1.3 times higher for Latinas. Most men (57.9%) are convicted of violent crimes, while women are primarily sentenced for non-violent drug-related (27.5%), property (24.4%), or public order (11.1%) crimes.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, use of incarceration in CT was drastically reduced to avoid crowding correctional institutions. This decrease in prison populations was primarily due to reduced admissions, not early release. The number of incarcerated women in CT dropped by 43%. More specifically, there was a large decrease in the number of women serving sentences of less than a year. The impact of these changes in criminal-legal practices on the HIV risk behaviors of women who use drugs is not known.