Incarcerated women report high rates of prior unintended pregnancies as well as low contraceptive use. Because jail could be a site of contraception care, this study aimed to assess women's access to contraception prior to their arrest. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 228 reproductive-aged, nonpregnant women arrested in San Francisco. Twenty-one percent were currently using contraception. More than half (61%) had not used contraception in the last year, yet 11% wanted to have used it. Women in this latter subset reported greater difficulty with payment, finding a clinic, and transportation compared to women who had used contraception. In addition, 60% of all women in the sample would accept contraception if offered to them in jail. Thus, jail is a potentially important and acceptable point of access to contraception, which can circumvent some preincarceration logistical barriers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.