Truthout
America's Toxic Prisons
Truthout and Earth Island Journal investigate the sites of some of the worst environmental injustices: prisons. The prison-industrial complex devastates communities and the environment, taking serious and sometimes life-threatening tolls on human health.
Series Introduction
Truthout and Earth Island Journal investigate the sites of some of the worst environmental injustices: prisons. The prison-industrial complex devastates communities and the environment, taking serious and sometimes life-threatening tolls on human health.
Read more about this series at Introducing “America’s Toxic Prisons.”
Plans for Prison on Mountaintop-Removal Site in Kentucky Scuttled. Maybe.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has withdrawn the $500 million proposal, but Mitch McConnell says he’s moving it forward.
EPA Adds Prison Locations to Its Environmental Justice Mapping Tool
Activists celebrate move as an advance in the struggle to recognize the environmental rights of incarcerated people.
“No Toilet, No Ventilation”: Prisoners Describe Horrific Conditions in Harvey’s Flood Zone
"We are alive barely," says one prisoner in Beaumont, Texas.
Eastham Prisoners Sue Over Deadly Heat and Contaminated Water in Texas
Deadly heat, unsafe water, black mold and cockroaches plague prisoners at many Texas prisons.
Climate Refugees in Toxic Immigrant Jails Are Victims of Environmental Racism
An immigrant jail in Tacoma, Washington, is in an area so polluted it was designated unfit for residences.
DOJ Withdraws Funding Request for Kentucky Prison on Mountaintop-Removal Site
Prison would have been terrible for health of prisoners and local wildlife, say advocates.
Prisoners Enduring Extreme Heat Are Casualties of Texas’s Climate Denial
In Texas prisons, the price of climate denial is human lives.
America’s Toxic Prisons: The Environmental Injustices of Mass Incarceration
U.S. prisons may be largely hidden from sight, but their environmental toxicity spreads far beyond their walls.
Environmental Justice Activists Fight Plans for Federal Prison on Mountaintop-Removal Site
Environmental justice activists are demanding federal agencies count prison populations when assessing environmental justice impacts.