Cutting the number of men who go to prison as well as the length of men’s incarceration could slow the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Publishing their findings in Social Science & Medicine, researchers conducted what is known as an agent-based model, which in this case was a computer simulation in which 250 simulated individuals may date and have sexual relationships.

The researchers ran the simulation to determine how many sexual partners men and women in the simulated community would have. Then they ran the simulation to see how incarceration would affect the number of sexual partners, and also factored in data from other research showing that men, when incarcerated, have a somewhat higher risk of ending a relationship and that they ultimately become less desirable as partners.

Incarceration, according to the model, would increase the number of sexual partners among both males and females. Additionally, if average sentences are increased, such changes might be even more profound.

“Our model showed that high levels of incarceration likely play a role in community-level sexual behavior, and are likely detrimental in terms of sexual risk for HIV and other [STIs],” lead author Andrea Knittel, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, said in a press release. “The results suggest that reducing incarceration and creating a more open criminal justice system that supports the maintenance of inmates’ relationships to reduce instability of partnerships for men who are incarcerated may have important sexual health and public health implications.”

To read a press release about the study, click here.

To read the study, click here.