Proposed legislation that would require inmates in Tennessee to be tested for HIV on leaving the correctional system would help reduce the number of new infections among black women, said its sponsor, Rep. Brenda Gilmore, a Democrat from Nashville.

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About 1% of the state’s 19,563 prisoners are HIV-positive, according to the state health and correction departments. “That number is just part of a complicated set of facts that end with African-American communities, African-American women in particular, deeply affected by this disease,” Gilmore told The Tennessean. Tennessee’s inmate population is disproportionately black and male, and ex-prisoners typically return to their communities and intimate relationships within them.

“I feel that I have to say that this is not because black women are more promiscuous,” Gilmore added. “This is about social networks and the way the disease is spread. We should face that and create some public policy that will save women’s lives.”

Currently, the Tennessee Department of Correction only tests inmates under age 21 for HIV. The new legislation would make HIV testing mandatory for all inmates on release. Texas has required such testing since 1995.

Neither the Tennessee Department of Corrections nor the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which operates six state prisons, has taken an official position on the measures, said agency and company representatives.

Gilmore proposed similar legislation last year.