; Whereas, in 2020, there were more than 11,000 people living with HIV in State and Federal prisons; Whereas among incarcerated populations, African-American men are 5 times as likely as White men, and twice as likely as Hispanic/Latino men, to be diagnosed with HIV; Whereas among incarcerated populations, African-American women are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with HIV as White or Hispanic/Latina women; Whereas the Williams Institute reports that HIV criminalization laws disproportionately impact African-Americans, who are more likely to be arrested and convicted of outdated laws lacking inclusion of modernized treatment access, options, and efficacy, facing longer sentences after conviction, and more likely to experience the lifelong consequences of a felony conviction including sex offender registry placement; Whereas transgender women in the United States are at high risk for HIV, with the CDC finding that 4 in 10 transgender women surveyed in seven major United States cities have HIV; Whereas more than half of all transgender people diagnosed with HIV are Black or African American; Whereas, in 2018, the South made up 51 percent of the new HIV diagnoses in the United States; Whereas African Americans are severely and disproportionately affected by HIV in the South, accounting for 52 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in the region; Whereas socioeconomic issues impact the rates of HIV transmission among African Americans in the South and throughout the United States; Whereas socioeconomic factors like income inequality, poverty, and lack of access to HIV prevention education and basic health services, and cultural factors like homophobia, transphobia, and racism all pose significant challenges to combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic; Whereas the epidemic of community and interpersonal violence that communities most impacted by HIV experience disproportionately fuels the HIV epidemic; Whereas the United States is seeing signs of progress