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I devoted my doctoral research at MIT to studying environmental injustice in prisons across a variety of hazards. I also spoke with dozens of formerly incarcerated people who explained that the physical and mental suffering they endured in prisons from both environmental and social factors left them in much worse shape than before their sentences. One prevalent hazard I studied was air pollution. Incarcerated populations may be exposed to numerous sources of air pollution, as many prisons are close to industrial activity, toxic waste facilities and places where wildfires are common. When I interviewed formerly incarcerated people about their experiences of environmental hazards, one woman who had been in prison in Pekin, Illinois, described what it was like to live in a place where at least 15 facilities in the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory pollute the air, water and land with chemicals. “We were right across the street, literally, right across the street from a power plant that was just belching this sulfurous smelling stuff. I don t know what it was. And I know that I have asthma. And that was really aggravated there,” she said. “There were times when we just couldn t go outside … because it wasn t just the smell you d breathe in—it was like your lungs would … hurt.”  Fifteen facilities (indicated by purple dots) in the U.S. EPA s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program that are within a 10 mile radius of the federal correctional institution, Pekin — a medium-security prison in Illinois (indicated by red marker). Credit: Ufuoma Ovienmhada via TRI Toxics Tracker This type of exposure is not pure coincidence. In certain regions facing economic hardship, land formerly used in agriculture, mining or industrial operations that have left behind legacies of air, soil and water pollution have been repurposed for prisons under the faulty premise that the prison will bring new jobs and prosperity. As I write this, Congressman Hal Rogers is championing a $500 million dollar effort to build two new Federal prisons in Letcher County, Kentucky, on a contaminated former coal mine, despite declining rates of crime and significant community opposition. Carceral facilities are also exposed to extreme heat. On average from 2020 to 2023, prisons across the U.S. experienced air temperatures of 94°F at least 10 days of the summer. Prisons are particularly vulnerable to heat exposure due to their aging infrastructure. The majority of prisons in the U.S. were built before 2000, with some built as early as the 1800s. As a result, they often have absent or outdated cooling, heating, and ventilation systems. Several people I’ve interviewed described laying on the cell floor in pools of water from the toilet to stay cool in hot facilities without air conditioning. Climate change is only making matters worse as 70% of prisons are experiencing worse temperature extremes than before. Further, the lack of universal policies in state or federal prisons for responding to climate hazards, such as hurricanes and wildfires, makes it hard to protect those who live in them. As one interviewee remarked about a wildfire event that occurred while they were incarcerated, “the only thing that we [heard] was that in case the fire did get close, we weren’t gonna go nowhere, we were gonna be in our cells…maybe the staff was going to be let out to go home… but we in our minds knew they weren’t going to try and ship us or transport us to a different location to protect us.”
 Red dots indicate that a prison has been hotter in recent years (2020 - 2023) than the historical average from 1990 - 2019. Credit: Ufuoma Ovienmhada As a consequence of exposure to environmental hazards, people in prisons, jails, and detention centers can develop respiratory and cardiovascular diseases that can, quite literally, affect their ability to breathe, and even lead to premature death. The fact that environmental injustice is widespread in carceral facilities reveals that the suffocation of marginalized bodies in the U.S. behind bars is in many cases by design, not an accidental byproduct. This highlights the need for a strategy that can address such an intentionally neglectful and deadly system.
Toward a world where we can breathe
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