Cruel, Unusual, and Toxic: The Environmental Implications of Mass Incarceration in the United States

Abstract

This note examines the environmental issues associated with mass incarceration. It will first discuss mass incarceration and environmental injustices generally. Then it will assert that, due to the increased demand for prison facilities, mass incarceration led to an era of building prisons on the cheapest, easiest to obtain sites: toxic waste sites and environmentally compromised locations across the country. It will examine the statistics and recent studies from organizations working to improve prison conditions. This note will assert that mass incarceration is, in its own way, a form of environmental injustice that may even be subject to Eighth Amendment constraints. To support this conclusion, it will first highlight the statistics on prisoners who have experienced health issues as a result of environmentally unsafe conditions. During this discussion, it will question Eighth Amendment implications; namely, whether asbestos, arsenic, and other toxic chemical exposure constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Next, it will examine the communities surrounding prisons and discuss how existing case law does not require prisons to conduct an environmental impact study prior to the construction of a prison. It will highlight the vast amount of pollution caused by prisons in recent years by examining specific prisons that have contaminated their surroundings, specifically in low-income and rural areas. Finally, it will discuss possible solutions to this problem and the difficulties in achieving those solutions.