Environmental Injustice Behind Bars: Toxic Imprisonment in America
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ANNUAL REPORT 2018 ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE BEHIND BARS: TOXIC IMPRISONMENT IN AMERICA THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROJECT PEJP Annual Report 2018 1 ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE BEHIND BARS: TOXIC IMPRISONMENT IN AMERICA PREPARED BY DAVID N. PELLOW JASMINE VAZIN HARRISON ASHBY MICHAELA A. AUSTIN SAGE KIME SHANNON MCALPINE YUE (RACHEL) SHEN UCSB'S PRISON ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROJECT, AN INITIATIVE OF UCSB'S GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROJECT PEJP Annual Report 2018 2 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA TABLE OF CONTENTS II.. AUTHORAUTHOR BBIOGRAPHIESIOGRAPHIES II.II. INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION III.III . SUMMARYSUMMARY IV.IV . CASECASE SSTUDYTUDY CCHAPTERSHAPTERS 11 Black Liberation Political Prisoners and Environmental Justice 25 Environmental Justice Violations in America’s Immigration System 44 Fatal Effects of Heat Subjugation in U.S. Prisons 51 Hungry, Sick, and Malnourished: Prison Food as Cruel and Unusual Punishment 64 Pepper Spray as Violence Suppression (and Violent Repression) in California’s Juvenile Detention Facilities 73 Prison Labor: Disproportionate Exposure to Environmental Hazards 85 Water Quality at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk PEJP Annual Report 2018 3 THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROJECT (805) 893-2968 | www.es.ucsb.edu/gejp/ | [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank the following persons and entities for their support, without which, the completion of this report would not have been possible: Adrianne Martinez, Akari Roudebush, Alex Garcia, Amy Tam, Berenise Alfaro, Cami Helmuth, Candace Bernd, Carla D’Antonio, Catherine Lee, Cheryl Hutton, Cheyenne Kabil, Diane Fujino, Ducky Joseph, Eric Copsey, Eric Zimmerman, Erinn O’Shea, Gabriel Piser, Jake Fernandes, Leyda Alvarez, Martin Rodriguez, Michelle Le, Paige Williams, Panagioti Tsolkas, Ra Thea, Richard Mosley, Unique Vance, and the UCSB Environmental Studies Program and the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. PEJP Annual Report 2018 4 AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES David N. Pellow Dr. David N. Pellow is the Department Chair, Professor, and Dehlsen Chair of the Environmental Studies Program of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he teaches courses on social change movements, environmental justice, human-animal conflicts, sustainability, and social inequality. He has published a number of works on environmental justice issues in communities of color in the U.S. and globally. His books include: What is Critical Environmental Justice? (Polity Press, 2017); Keywords for Environmental Studies (editor, with Joni Adamson and William Gleason, New York University Press, 2016); Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement (University of Minnesota Press, 2014); The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden (with Lisa Sun-Hee Park, New York University Press, 2011); The Treadmill of Production: Injustice and Unsustainability in the Global Economy (with Kenneth Gould and Allan Schnaiberg, Paradigm Press, 2008); Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice (MIT Press, 2007); The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy (with Lisa Sun-Hee Park, New York University Press, 2002); Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago (MIT Press, 2002); Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development (with Adam Weinberg and Allan Schnaiberg, Princeton University Press, 2000); Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement (editor, with Robert J. Brulle, MIT Press, 2005); and Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (co-editor, with Ted Smith, David Sonnenfeld, and Leslie Byster, Temple University Press, 2006). He has served on the Boards of Directors of several community-based, national, and international organizations that are dedicated to improving the living and working environments for people of color, immigrants, indigenous peoples, and working-class communities, including the Global Action Research Center, the Center for Urban Transformation, the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health, Global Response, Greenpeace USA, and International Rivers. He earned his B.A. in Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1992. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University in 1998. PEJP Annual Report 2018 5 AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES Jasmine Vazin Jasmine Vazin, a second-year master’s student at the Bren School of Environmental Science, graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a minor in Philosophy in 2014. Jasmine won a Eureka award and is published in Aquatic Ecology for her research, which involved enzyme kinetics in freshwater systems. She later received grants through the University to study parental care heritability in African cichlids and endemic salamander speciation in Tennessee. After four years of research experience in academia, Jasmine moved into the private sector. She worked at Green Source Organics as a regulatory manager in charge of locating sustainable and fairly traded food products for wholesale worldwide. She petitioned to have excess food stores donated to foodbanks around Los Angeles, and launched a retail line to offer healthy food options to consumers at an accessible price. While specializing in Conservation Planning in graduate school she is also conducting research with the Global Environmental Justice Project to quantify environmental justice violations within the United States. She is interested in food justice, ecotoxicology, and policy. Harrison Ashby Harrison Ashby is an undergraduate student in the Environmental Studies department at UCSB. She has been working on the Prison Environmental Justice Project since April of 2018. She is an organizer for Liberation Santa Barbara, which focuses on animal rights, and for Food Not Bombs Isla Vista, which focuses on food justice. Her interests include environmental justice, climate justice, and climate change policy. Michaela A. Austin Michaela Anastasia Austin is a fourth year Environmental Studies and Sociology double major. With a focus in environmental justice, she is especially interested in how toxic materials and climate change cumulatively and disproportionately affect marginalized communities. She has served as a research assistant for the Prison Environmental Justice Project since March 2017, documenting the many environmental injustices and human rights abuses embedded in the U.S. prison industrial complex. Her research has ranged from the sterilization of incarcerated women to unregulated medical testing in prisons, to the systematic malnourishment of inmates. Michaela is currently fulfilling her passion for EJ as a Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice Intern where PEJP Annual Report 2018 6 she has gained invaluable knowledge and skills from frontline communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Michaela enjoys cooperative-style living as a member of the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperatives. She resides in Biko, the People of Color house, which is an intentional space actively seeking to spread awareness about racial equality, social justice, and anti-oppression. Sage Kime Sage Kime is a recent UCSB graduate with a B.A. in Environmental Studies. With an emphasis on human-environmental interaction and an interest in environmental justice, her studies mainly focused on the ways in which environmental risks/impacts disproportionately affect marginalized communities. Sage previously worked as the Staff Food Security Coordinator for UCSB Sustainability, where she researched best practices and opportunities for improved policies regarding food security within staff at UCSB. Now researching the intersections between environmental injustice and prison labor, she has enjoyed working on the Global Environmental Justice Project. Shannon McAlpine Shannon McAlpine is a fourth-year undergraduate researcher for the Prison Environmental Justice Project. She has been working on the project since August 2017 and is pursuing an Environmental Studies B.A. degree at UC Santa Barbara. Shannon is interested in issues concerning health problems that arise from environmental injustices, such as exposure to contaminated water and living in close proximity to toxic sites. She believes it is important for the public to become aware of these issues and hopes she can help spread awareness. Shannon hopes to pursue a career in public health as a social epidemiologist. Yue (Rachel) Shen Yue Shen graduated from UCSB with a B.A. in Environmental Studies in 2017. She started working on the Prison Environmental Justice Project in 2015 as a student research assistant and continued on as a project coordinator after she graduated. Her research interest lies in studying how environmental injustice often mingles with social justice issues and disproportionately affects disadvantaged groups in urban settings. She will be pursuing her master’s degree in Urban Planning starting this Fall at UCLA. PEJP Annual Report 2018 7 INTRODUCTION By David Pellow T H E W O R L D S L A R G E S T J A I L E R * The United States of America has the largest prison system of any nation on earth, the largest number of prisoners of any country, and one of the highest percentages of