There is an increased recognition that AOD use is a major correlate of women's offending patterns; and drug use in itself is defined as criminal behavior for specific categories of drugs; however, the majority of studies and official reports to date have neglected to address the impact of the AOD/crime lifestyle on women's initiation and maintenance of these deviant behaviors. As defined in this chapter, the AOD/crime lifestyle is the combination of social context and environmental influences that together provide a network of interactions and experiences that shape women's experiences. This lifestyle may be viewed as consisting of both immediate social context, including family, social supports, and relationships; and larger macro-level influences of the environment, including social mores and norms of the community, legal and bureaucratic structures, and neighborhood influences. A wide range of criminal activity is associated with AOD use/abuse for women, including the exchange of sex for money or drugs, shoplifting, theft, and drug sales/distribution. This chapter discusses the characteristics and experiences of women in the AOD/crime lifestyle, including the influence of the lifestyle on medical and psychological functioning, violent victimization across the lifespan, and parenting issues. The chapter concludes with an overview of the social and legal responses to the women in the AOD/crime lifestyle. It identifies the punitive response as dominant, in that arrests, prosecutions, and sentences for drug users have increased; the criminalization of pregnant AOD users has been implemented by State prosecutors; and wide-scale efforts have been mounted to eliminate women AOD users from welfare rolls. Such policies have eliminated safety nets and increased the problems of women involved in the AOD/crime lifestyle. The authors recommend a harm-reduction approach to the AOD/crime lifestyle. This involves less of an effort to reduce and control AOD abuse and more of an effort to eliminate the harms connected with AOD. These harms include childhood and adult victimization, medical and health problems, and the continued criminalization of women because of their AOD use and related offending to support the addiction. 248 references and 3 discussion questions