What does mass incarceration have to do with environmental degradation? More than you’d think.
Kenneth Hartman was three decades into a life sentence at the California State Prison in Lancaster when he contracted valley fever, a debilitating respiratory infection caused by breathing in fungal spores from the air.
“The severity [of my symptoms] kept increasing to the point that I clearly remember thinking, If I get any sicker, I’m going to die,” Hartman said. “In the space of two weeks of waking every night soaked with sweat, I lost 25 pounds and became increasingly mentally confused. My physical strength was near zero.… I had a persistent dry cough, severe night sweats, and bouts of vertigo that rendered me practically immobile.”
Hartman’s story is not an isolated case. Throughout the U.S., prisons stand atop toxic ground.
In Pennsylvania, inmates developed cancer from exposure to toxic coal ash. In Lakasota, Texas, prisoners drank arsenic-laced water for months on end. On Riker’s Island in New York — a prison built atop a landfill, next to a mega-power plant — inmates have contracted fatal respiratory diseases after years of breathing methane-heavy air.
Around one third of the country’s federal and state prisons are within 3 miles of Superfund sites. The problem is particularly pronounced in Appalachia, where private prisons are increasingly being built on flattened mountaintop removal sites and coal slurry ponds, subject to compromised air and water quality.
“Corporations…come in, they pillage the environment, be it by mining, forestry, or whatever, and then when everything has been exhausted, when trees have been cut down, every last grain of ore has been ripped from the soil, and everything has been contaminated and poisoned in the process, the final solution is, okay now we’re going to build a prison here,” said Paul Wright, Executive Director of the Human Rights Defense Center.
“A lot of people… think that the government is somehow a solution to this problem,” Wright said. “The prison ecology issue turns that whole thing on its head because in these cases, it’s the government that’s chosen to build these prisons on toxic waste sites.”
Not only are prisons built on pollution hotspots, but they are a major source of pollution in their own right: prisons across Washington, Alabama, Georgia, and California have gained notoriety for decades of dumping sewage into nearby waterways.
In the U.S., low-income communities of color bear the brunt of this toxic exposure, and are also disproportionately incarcerated. The U.S. incarcerates far more people per capita than any country in the world — it is home to 5% of the world’s population but one quarter of its prisoners. Worse yet, the effectiveness of incarceration as a crime control tactic has declined in recent decades: one study found that incarceration has had little to no effect on crime rates since 2000.
To make matters worse, the incarceration cycle is self-perpetuating: 77 percent of prisoners are arrested again within 5 years of their release.
While many factors contribute to recidivism, carceral exposure to toxins is likely a significant cause of cognitive effects that give rise to violent crime.
A host of studies have directly linked the 1990’s crime drop to the phasing out of lead in gasoline and paint in the 1970s, which reduced lead poisoning in children that can lead to aggression, impaired impulse control — and, in turn, crime — later in life. Recent evidence suggests that exposure to air pollution increases several kinds of crime, especially those involving violent and aggressive behavior. Water pollution can have the same effect: one study found that consuming polluted water can have as significant an effect on violent crime as living in poverty. Even short-term exposure to wildfire smoke can have an impact, as a 2019 report during Colorado’s wildfire season evidenced.
“The smoke was so bad that after a few days, I started to get frustrated, and I wondered if frustration and aggression would show up in aggregate crime data,” report co-author Jeff Pierce said. “The results [were] fascinating, and also scary. When you have more air pollution, this specific type of crime, domestic violent crime… increases quite significantly.”
In a country with the world’s largest incarcerated population and incarceration budget, it is imperative that policies aim to curtail recidivism rates. To that end, promoting clean prison environments, nature access, and stable, post-release work opportunities should be of paramount importance.
The Case for a Green New Deal for the Formerly Incarcerated
If we want to decrease violent crime, reduce carceral spending, heal degraded ecosystems, and employ thousands while building a more resilient economy, a Green New Deal for the formerly incarcerated is critical. The U.S. spends $64 billion annually on mass incarceration, much of which is for minor drug crimes. To decrease recidivism, it is imperative that incarceration funds be reallocated toward cleanups of toxic prison sites and meaningful environmental programs to employ and rehabilitate ex-convicts. Incentivizing “green-collar” job-creation in renewable energy, agriculture, and ecological restoration for the formerly incarcerated could be the solution.
Numerous programs across the country that have invested in training inmates for green careers have seen remarkable success. The Center for Sustainable Careers in Baltimore, Maryland trains inmates in environmental cleanups and brownfield remediation, offering program graduates seven industry-recognized environmental health and safety certifications. On the Texas Gulf Coast, Restoration not Incarceration trains incarcerated juveniles to restore the region’s prairies, bayous, and wetlands while providing counseling from licensed social workers. In Olympia, Washington, the Sustainability in Prisons Project partners with a local college to train inmates in native plant conservation and species restoration. In Mansfield, Ohio, a correctional institution operates a 12-week solar training program for inmates leaving prison within the year. In Willow City, Minnesota, a federal grant enables inmates to receive free college-level solar installation classes and assistance in finding employment in the renewable sector while on probation. And in Berkeley, California, the Insight Garden Program partners with local organizations to provide organic gardening training to inmates and offer job placement for $17/hour jobs upon release.
“As sectors become greener in the economy, the most promising employment prospects for individuals with criminal records include construction and energy efficiency, manufacturing, transportation, natural resources/environmental protection, and renewable energy,” a 2011 National Institute of Corrections report The Greening of Corrections: Creating a Sustainable System stated. “Many of these industries have traditionally been more open to hiring individuals with criminal records and are considered promising because of their potential job growth…and fewer legal and other barriers to employment.”
Green prison programs have been found to reduce recidivism rates more than traditional rehabilitation techniques, which can be attributed to the pro-social and psychological benefits that time in nature provides.
There are several avenues through which federal, state and local governments could promote these green rehabilitation programs: governments could (1) provide grants and tax credits to green organizations that prioritize employing the incarcerated, (2) liberalize expungement policies for minor crimes, (3) allow parole for participants in environmental projects, (4) require publicly-funded environmental initiatives to employ former convicts, and/or (5) ban hiring discrimination on the basis of criminal record (as thirteen states and District of Columbia have done). States that have already begun to enact these policies have witnessed the potential for environmental prison programs to radically rehabilitate inmates.
“For me, science education hasn’t just been the pathway to a better understanding of the world I live in…It has deepened my compassion for my fellow man,” said Richard Kirham, a beekeeper and graduate of Roots of Success, an environmental literacy program offered in 23 of Ohio’s 28 correctional institutions.
“It has spurred me to want more for myself and my planet, and to be more than just the number that is used to identify me. I am no longer just DOC #756060. I am no longer an apathetic, uninformed criminal with no perspective and no future… I am a global citizen who knows now that he understands little, and who seeks to understand much.”
