Criminal Legal Status and Health: Examining the Case of Community Supervision Among Latina Women in the United States

Latina women are uniquely vulnerable to being caught in the dragnet of community supervision by criminal legal, immigration, and welfare systems. Community supervision likely has distinct consequences for Latinas’ health and health care. Such consequences, however, may be difficult to detect because of the broader pathways that entrap Latinas into community supervision. Using the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, this study explores the relationships between health, health care, and community supervision among US Latina adults. Unlike other populations, Latinas share similar health profiles, regardless of community supervision status. Further, while Black and White adults under community supervision have wide gender gaps in health and health care use, gender disparities among community supervised Latinx adults are smaller or nonexistent. These findings underscore the intersection of multiple systems of surveillance for US Latinas, and raise questions about how future research must approach community supervision as a fundamental determinant of health.