User:Cyclegirl22/Incarceration in the United States

Environmental

Mass incarceration in the United States has created numerous environmental justice concerns, including both the environmental footprint of prisons and incarcerated individuals' exposure to environmental harm.

Prisons around the United States contribute to the water contamination of surrounding bodies of water. Prisons also contribute high amounts of air pollution which affects individuals incarcerated within the prison, surrounding communities, and the ecosystems in the surrounding area. Prisons around the country violate the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act frequently. The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to monitor prisons in the United States. However, prisons often fail to provide Environment Impact Statements to the EPA each year, making it difficult to fully understand their environmental impact. Prisons also require a large amount of energy since they run 24 hours a day.

Many prisons around the United States are built on or close to superfund sites which expose incarcerated individuals to environmental toxins such as high levels of lead and copper. Some prisons in the United States are also built next to landfills, toxic waste sites, and old mining sites. Since prisons are not strictly regulated, the existence of these prisons inherently validates toxins to be prevalent in the environment. Incarcerated individuals are forced to breathe and consume these toxins with no government protection.

Another concern that incarcerated individuals face is not having access to adequate heating and cooling during extreme weather conditions which are only becoming more common due to climate change. As summers continue to get hotter, many prisons do not have air conditioning, and numerous incarcerated individuals die from extreme heat as a result. Although prisons are supposed to provide fans and ice to individuals during extreme heat events, they do not always follow through. During the winter, prisons do not have proper heating. Many incarcerated individuals complain that the Department of Corrections does not provide supplies such as blankets during cold weather, and they have to depend on donations or suffer with nothing. Environmental justice and energy justice activists argue the lack of adequate heating and cooling in prisons is a form of “cruel and unusual punishment,” which violates their Eighth Amendment.

There has been a growing movement to make prisons more sustainable through numerous “green prison” programs. Green prisons promote sustainable living while also focusing on the incarcerated individual’s rehabilitation which will hopefully lead to low recidivism rates. This includes reducing waste and transitioning to renewable energy sources. However, there has been some pushback to the spread of green programs within prisons as environmental justice activists argue they only reinforce mass incarceration.