By Tamara E. Holmes

Fourteen years ago, 25-year-old Precious Jackson did something that many young women her age do: She fell in love. Her boyfriend at the time had a lengthy rap sheet and was in and out of prison, but "those were the types of men that I really dug," she recalls. "I liked the bad boys." Though Jackson wanted to ask him to take an HIV test, "I didn't want to insult his manhood," she says. A year and a half later, he tested positive for HIV, and so did she.

Jackson is convinced that her ex-boyfriend contracted HIV in prison, where high-risk behavior is not uncommon. Not only does consensual sex -- and rape -- occur, but injection drug use and tattooing often take place behind bars as well. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, about 1.5 percent of prisoners are HIV positive (pdf), and it's estimated that between 17 percent and 25 percent of people in the U.S. living with HIV have been in the prison system. Black Americans are incarcerated at a higher rate than all other races and ethnic groups.

While it's not uncommon for prisoners to be HIV tested when they enter prison, they aren't likely to be tested again unless they admit to having engaged in high-risk behavior, according to Edward Harrison, president of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. But many inmates don't want to come clean, says Linda McFarlane, deputy executive director of Just Detention International, a Los Angeles-based organization that works to end sexual abuse in prisons. "People fear disciplinary action if they expose that they were tattooing, that they were using IV drugs or that they had any type of sexual activity. Even consensual sex is not allowed in the prisons," McFarlane says.

While it's important for all women to consider the possibility that a sexual partner may have HIV and to protect themselves by getting tested and using condoms, women who date men who have been incarcerated face unique challenges, experts say. It is often more difficult to get former inmates to open up about high-risk behavior that they may have taken part in while incarcerated.