For Antonia Martinez, criminal charges and depression created a feedback loop that seemed impossible to escape.

As an engineering student attending Northern New Mexico College during the coronavirus pandemic, her car was stolen, and she took it into her “own hands,” getting in a fight that led to an assault charge, which turned into an evading arrest charge when she fled from police.

When she was jailed, first in Rio Arriba County and then around seven months ago in Santa Fe, her studies were put on hold. Unable to work, she fell further behind on student loans, worsening her depression and drug addiction.

“It’s like one thing led to the next,” said Martinez, 44. “You’re kind of just stuck in this cycle that is devastating.”

Martinez was one of 20 women who had been enrolled in the San

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