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69
doi: 10.1002/wmh3.382
© 2021 Policy Studies Organization
Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities: A Call
for Greater Transparency, Accountability, and Human
Rights Protections
Cynthia A. Golembeski , Kimberly R. Dong , and Ans Irfan
The United States has approximately 5 percent of the world's population but incarcerates nearly 25
percent of the world's incarcerated population and produces nearly 25 percent of global carbon dioxide
emissions. Climate change and hyperincarceration are causes and consequences of structural racism
and economic deprivation, which disproportionately affect structurally disenfranchised citizens, in-
cluding lower‐income communities, communities of color, and people with disabilities. Empirical
evidence exists regarding the adverse health effects of climate change and mass incarceration, which
occur in cascading and overlapping categories and include preventable death, illness, and injury.
Researchers underscore the medical vulnerability of incarcerated populations, who are increasingly
susceptible to climate‐driven exposure pathways and mental and physical health outcomes involving
extreme temperatures, natural disasters, infectious diseases, and displacement. Intersectional struc-
tural drivers, such as anthropogenic climate change and hyperincarceration, undermine social and
political determinants of health equity. Policymakers and health professionals can advance under-
standing and mitigate present and anticipated public health threats by increasing transparency,
accountability, and human rights protections with an emphasis on decarceration and decarbonization.
KEY WORDS: climate change, disaster, incarceration
Marcia Powell and Prison‐Attributable Death
Marcia Powell, a 48‐year‐old woman serving a 2‐year sentence for charges related
tosexworkatanArizonastateprison,waskeptinanuncoveredchain‐linked outdoor
cell for at least 4 hours and exposed to temperatures above 107°F in May 2009 (Mar-
icopa County Office of the Medical Examiner, 2009; Wahab & Panichelli, 2013).Ari-
zona prison policy limits this type of confinement to 2 hours. Powell, like many others,
would have been better suited for a diversion program with social services as an
alternative to incarceration (Wahab & Panichelli, 2013). The county medical examiner
report documented a core temperature of 108°F; first and second‐degree burns on her
face, upper body, chest, legs, and arms; dehydration; metabolic acidosis with coa-
gulopathy; rhabdomyolysis and acute renal failure; plus that she "died as a result of
complications of hyperthermia due to environmental heat exposure" (Maricopa
County Office of the Medical Examiner, 2009). Yet, the medical examiner ruled the
manner of death an accident. Neither individual employees nor the state correctional
system were held accountable for Powell's painful, unnecessary death despite in-
carcerated people constituting the only group with a constitutional guarantee to health
care and protection from physical and psychological harm under the eighth amend-
ment (Dolovich, 2009; Wahab & Panichelli, 2013).
Despite the lack of systematic surveillance, tracking, and reporting of deaths in
jails and prisons due to extreme temperature exposure, unrelated to faulty heating
or cooling systems or climate‐related disasters, numerous cases are described
primarily within court documents, gray literature, and the media (Motanya &
Valera, 2016; Prins and Story, 2020; Skarha, Peterson, Rich, & Dosa, 2020).
1
More-
over, jail and prison subpopulations, especially sensitive to higher temperatures,
include individuals who are aging, experiencing certain health conditions, as well
as taking medications that interfere with the body's capacity to regulate temper-
ature, such as psychotropic and blood pressure drugs (Skarha et al., 2020). Given
the numerous people with comorbid mental and physical health conditions who
are involved with the criminal legal system, addressing how medications may
increase health risks associated with extreme temperature exposure is key
(Bark, 1998; Bouchama et al., 2007; Martin‐Latry et al., 2007). For instance, Powell's
toxicology report includes positive tests for many medications, including Benz-
tropine for Parkinson's disease, the antipsychotic medication Haloperidol, valproic
acid, a mood‐stabilizing drug used to treat depression and epilepsy, and lidocaine.
Benztropine, Haloperidol, and valproic acid are all psychotropic drugs.
Powell exemplifies what Homer Venters, former chief medical officer of the
New York City Jails, conceptualizes as a jail or prison attributable death (Ven-
ters, 2019).
2
Recent scholarship outlines how incarcerated populations and staff
may become increasingly vulnerable to climate‐driven health effects associated
with extreme temperatures, natural disasters, mental and physical health con-
ditions, and forced displacement (Holt, 2015; Motanya & Valera, 2016; Prins &
Story, 2020; Skarha et al., 2020). Although decarceration should be prioritized,
despite the urgent need, limited climate adaptation efforts at jails and prisons,
including poor emergency management planning after natural disasters, make it
difficult to precisely track mortality associated with extreme cold and heat ex-
posure, given that many health conditions are affected by extreme temperatures
(Skarha et al., 2020). Without appropriate oversight, accountability, and trans-
parency, it is difficult to empirically assess the number of climate‐related illnesses,
injuries, and deaths occurring within the criminal legal system (Figure 1).
Introduction
Public health and legal professionals have laid bare the vast inequities asso-
ciated with climate change adaptation response, particularly in terms of the social‐
structural drivers that exacerbate adverse experiences of hyperincarceration,
climate change, and associated negative health conditions (Holt, 2015; Motanya &
Valera, 2016; Prins & Story, 2020; Skarha et al., 2020).
3
,
4
The U.S. has approximately
5 percent of the world's population, yet comprises nearly 25 percent of the world's
incarcerated population. Also, the U.S. is responsible for nearly 25 percent of
70 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
cumulative carbon dioxide (CO
2
)emissions to date (refer to Figures 2 and 3).
5
,
6
As
depicted in Figure 2, the U.S. has emitted approximately 400 billion metric tons of
CO
2
since the mid‐18th century, which is twice that of China and also twice that of
the European Union's 28 countries. The U.S. surpassed Europe as a major CO
2
emitter during the industrial era. World Prison Brief data (2020)represented in
Figure 3 depict the U.S. (655/100,000)as having approximately 2.3 million of the
10.74 million people held in prisons worldwide. Over the past 40 years, the U.S.
incarceration rate has increased by over 500 percent, whereas the U.S. cumulative
CO
2
emissions have increased by over 100 percent. The U.S. has largely abdicated
its responsibility to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions or adapt its systems, such as
jails and prisons, to the changing climate. Decarceration and decarbonization are
key priorities to alleviating suffering, plus reducing health inequities endemic to
the political economy of racial capitalism (Story & Prins, 2019).
Health inequities are profoundly influenced by economic deprivation and
structural racism, which “refers to the totality of ways in which societies foster
racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, educa-
tion, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal
justice”(Bailey et al., 2017, p. 1453). Ruth Wilson Gilmore's definition of racism
aptly applies to both carceral and climate injustices, involving “state‐sanctioned
or extra‐legal production and exploitation of group differentiated vulnerability
to premature death”(Gilmore, 2007). Public health and criminology experts
Figure 1 “Lord”Bones, 72. Incarcerated in Angola, also known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary,
takes care of the horses and drives the hearse when burying people who have died while in prison.
(“Angola”is the largest maximum‐security prison in the U.S. housing nearly 65,000 men as well as the
execution chamber for both men and women. “Angola,”the name of the former plantation that was in
the same area was named after the African country from which many slaves came to Louisiana. “I know
I'm blessed. All my troubles, I put them in the Lord's hands. I don't get mad. I take it a day at a time.
While you're in here, life is still going on. You've got to make the best of it where you're at. I take pride
in what I do. When I go to driving [the hearse], I'm working for the Lord. I'm bringing his children
home. Everyone here's inmates just like me. All us got to die and that's something I don't worry about.
One day, someone's gonna have to drive me.”Photo Credit: Ron Levine, Prisoners of Age).
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 71
Figure 2 Cumulative CO
2
Emissions, 2018. Cumulative CO
2
emissions represent the total sum of CO
2
emissions produced from fossil fuels and cement since 1751, and is measured in tonnes.
Source: Reproduced from Our World in Data. Global Carbon Project (GCP); Carbon Dioxide Information
Analysis Centre (CDIAC). https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
(Ritchie & Roser, 2017).
Figure 3 Prison Population Rate Per 100,000, 2018. Source: World Prision Brief (2020). Reproduced
from Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prison-population-rate.
72 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
advocate for substantive criminal legalsystemreformandunderscorehow
many systems of oppression, such as sexism, racism, and classism, are germane
to environmental exploitation (Barnert, Ahalt, & Williams, 2020; Cole &
Foster, 2001; Nowotny, Bailey, Omori, & Brinkley‐Rubinstein, 2020;
Tuana, 2019; Venters, 2020). Fundamental causes of hyperincarceration,
climate crisis, and related health inequities are linked to “systems of extraction,
exploitation, domination, racism, and heteropatriarchy”against which there has
been much “intersectional social and political mobilization”and contestation
(Prins & Story, 2020). Additionally, policy and scientific experts
encourage cross‐sectoral collaboration, including community perspectives and
embodied expertise, to support democratic governance, address the climate
change crisis, and increase equity and positive health outcomes (Krieger, 2020;
Méndez, 2020).
For those of us in public health, one way to contribute our skills and insights to the changes so
urgently needed—in both society overall and the institutions where we work—is to start by
respecting the leadership of the myriad groups in coalition, nationally and locally, who are together
propelling the current social movement, such as the Movement for Black Lives, the Poor People's
Campaign, and the Green New Deal (Krieger, 2020, p. e3).
Krieger (2020)underscores the lack of reliable, transparent data associated with
the health effects of climate change and the criminal legal system, particularly for
lesser‐resourced social groups. Moreover, political interests seeking to undermine
rights and disenfranchise people of color andeconomicallydeprivedpeopleconverge
around the public health crises associated with hyperincarceration and climate change
(Hertel‐Fernandez, 2019; Kamarck, 2019). In terms of carceral and climate contexts,
“racism influences health directly through shaping environmental and institutional
conditions and practices and through intermediate and proximate factors that impact
health outcomes”(Thorpe, Norris, Beech, & Bruce, 2019, p. 209). Additionally, Bowen
and Murshid (2016)propose that trauma‐informed policy analysis is ideal for ad-
dressing social problems, including violence, homelessness, addiction, and chronic
disease, all of which are strongly associated with the twin stressors of hyper-
incarceration and climate injustice.
Climate Change and Health Inequities
Climate change refers to long‐term changes in weather patterns across the
globe due to anthropogenic causes, such as fossil fuel use, while global warming—
one of many components of the changing climate—refers to the increasing average
temperature of Earth's surface (Conway, 2008; Stott, 2016). Although media, the
broader public, and even some scientists use the terms “global warming”and
“climate change”interchangeably, climate change is a more accurate term for the
overall phenomenon.
7
Few issues within the scientific community enjoy the level of
consensus as anthropogenic climate change. Nearly 97 percent of scientists agree
that climate change is happening and caused by human activity (Cook et al., 2016).
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 73
Leading organizations, such as the American Public Health Association (APHA)
and the American Medical Association (AMA), concur that anthropogenic climate
change exists and emphasize related health challenges. According to the APHA,
“climate change poses major threats to human health, human and animal pop-
ulations, ecological stability, and human social, financial, and political stability and
well‐being”(American Public Health Association, 2015). Furthermore, the AMA
supports “the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth
assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is un-
dergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are
significant (American Medical Association, 2019).”
Climate change affects the Earth's geophysical systems and perpetuates health
inequities (Mora et al., 2017). The U.S. Global Change Research Program
(USGCRP)'s Climate and Health Assessment documents the health impacts of cli-
mate change in detail (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016). Figure 4 il-
lustrates several of the climate drivers, the exposure pathways, and the eventual
health outcomes related to such climatic changes. Climate change also exacerbates
morbidity and mortality related to heat, air pollution, water and vector‐borne
disease, malnutrition and food safety, and mental health challenges, and increases
disease burdens related to asthma, Alzheimer's disease, chronic obstructive
Figure 4 Climate Change and Health. Source: Reproduced from the U.S. Global Change Research
Program (USGCRP)Climate and Health Assessment (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016).
https://health2016.globalchange.gov/downloads.
74 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
pulmonary disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, among other con-
ditions (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016; Watts et al., 2018). Relatedly,
heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and heat stroke interfere with physical and mental
functioning (Mayo Clinic, 2020).Escherichia coli and dysentery, along with other
diseases and infections associated with the stomach, intestine, or other internal
organs, are also highly correlated with adverse climate conditions and extreme heat
(U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016; Watts et al., 2018). Climate change
adaptation is necessary to avoid exacerbation of chronic disease and mortality rates
(Mora et al., 2017; Noble et al., 2014).
Amidst global warming, future health concerns loom large given the increase in
temperatures and pollution, including airborne toxins and water‐borne infections,
associated with fossil fuel use and CO
2
emissions (Trumble & Finch, 2019). Ongoing
research suggests climate change exacerbates air pollution's ill effects on social
welfare, behavior, and cognition in ways that may not yet be fully understood
(Herrnstadt, Heyes, Muehlegger, & Saberian, 2020; Mayo Clinic, 2020; Park,
Goodman, & Behrer, 2020). Systematically assessing the various chemicals polluting
the environment and exposure effects is challenging; therefore, related social costs
may be greater than currently anticipated (Herrnstadt et al., 2020; Trumble &
Finch, 2019; Vermeulen, Schymanski, Barabási, & Miller, 2020).
Climate change will incur further rising temperatures and extreme weather
events increasing in severity, frequency, duration, and unpredictability (Banholzer
et al., 2014; Holt, 2015; National Aeronautics and Space Administration
[NASA], 2020; Stott, 2016). Moreover, Sze (2020)traces how environmental injustices
manifest across racial and economic lines and underscores how environmental jus-
tice movements have mitigated multilevel and intersecting injustices. Multiple scales
of social, economic, historical, and political factors influence differential human
vulnerability to environmental hazards and harms (Thomas et al., 2019). Drastic
actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the root cause of climate change, and
climate change‐related human activities are critical.
8
Global inaction and a lack of
leadership on climate change mitigation and adaptation have serious climate and
environmental justice consequences (Gore, 2006; Méndez, 2020).
Hyperincarceration and Health Inequities
Western (2018)posits racial inequality, poverty, and a high level of violence as
three primary characteristics of the social world of hyperincarceration. Seminal
works analyze discrimination and the political and sociohistorical antecedents of
hyperincarceration, including the Black Codes, as a social determinant of health
(Acker et al., 2019; Alexander, 2012; Davis, 2020; Fullilove, 1993; Hinton, 2016;
Muhammad, 2010). Hyperincarceration and negative individual and population‐
level public health effects, along with structural violence at its core, have been well
documented (Golembeski & Fullilove, 2008; Golembeski et al., 2020b;
Gottschalk, 2015; Patterson, 2013; Venters, 2019; Wacquant, 2009). Paradoxically,
there is evidence that some jails or prisons may provide quality care and healing,
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 75
which underscores the withering health and social safety nets in lesser‐resourced
communities (Massoglia & Remster, 2019; Sufrin, 2017).
Currently, more than 2,000 prisons and 3,000 jails hold approximately 2.3 million
people (Carson, 2020; Flagg & Neff, 2020). Over 60 percent of people in prison are
people of color (Carson, 2020). Scholars have posited involvement with the criminal
legal system as a cause and a consequence of poverty (Sugie, 2012; Western, 2018).
9
The U.S. criminal legal system has been drawn upon to address many social problems
and public health concerns, including mental health and substance use challenges,
violence, and poverty. Racial disproportionality in arrest, detention, solitary confine-
ment, and jail and prison attributable injury, illness, and death rates have been em-
pirically reported (Rosenberg et al., 2017; Massoglia, 2008; Venters, 2019). Massoglia
and Pridemore (2015)underscore the higher rates of exposure to the carceral system
and related consequences, which may serve as both acute and chronic stressors, be-
falling people of color, those living with disabilities, and the economically deprived.
Nearly 95 percent of people incarcerated return to neighborhoods and face
reentry challenges associated with family reunification, health care, housing, and
financial security due to structural issues (Golembeski & Fullilove, 2008).In-
carceration rates may be declining for certain populations, yet the criminal legal
system's effects on individuals, families, and communities remain long after in-
carceration. For instance, people convicted of a felony and misdemeanor violations
face over 44,000 restrictions, barriers, and bans limiting access to health care, public
benefits, food, housing, education, employment, and other rights (Golembeski,
Irfan, & Dong, 2020a; Kirk & Wakefield, 2018; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
[USCCR], 2019).
10
These 44,000 “collateral consequences”of punishment may in-
crease incentives to recidivate, decrease successful reintegration, and exacerbate
health inequities (Chesney‐Lind & Mauer, 2003; USCCR, 2019).
Figure 5 underscores structural racism and economic deprivation as endemic to
the cyclical nature of incarceration and discrimination as outlined in this section
(Acker et al., 2019). People involved with the criminal legal system dis-
proportionately face significant health challenges during periods of time before,
during, and after incarceration (Acker et al., 2019; Cloud, Bassett, Graves, Fullilove,
& Brinkley‐Rubinstein, 2020; Wildeman & Wang, 2017). Substandard health care
within jails and prisons, unhealthy environmental factors, and the health impacts of
carceral systems have been well documented (Golembeski et al., 2020b; Massoglia
& Remster, 2019; Venters, 2019). A high prevalence of comorbid chronic medical
and mental health conditions exists among incarcerated individuals, who are often
from underserved communities (Binswanger, Redmond, Steiner, and Hicks, 2012).
Mental health and substance use disorders often co‐occur, with rates as high as 75
percent, accompanied by inadequate treatment (Harzke & Pruitt, 2018). People with
severe mental health challenges are often stigmatized and disadvantaged, plus
vulnerable to repeated arrest or incarceration, particularly absent of appropriate
supports or diversion strategies (Baillargeon et al., 2009; Glied & Frank, 2009).
Incarcerated people are the only U.S. population with a constitutional guarantee
to health care, including protection from serious physical and psychological harm
(Dolovich, 2009). Inadequate staffing, transportation to clinics, and knowledge of
76 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
incarcerated people's location may contribute to preventable death as a systematic
risk of incarceration (Venters, 2019). Moreover, Massoglia found individuals with a
history of incarceration are consistently more likely to develop illnesses associated
with stress (Massoglia, 2008). Understanding and addressing the health challenges of
people involved in the criminal legal system is critical to achieving the triple aim of
improving patient experience of care and population health while limiting costs
(Binswanger, Maruschak, Mueller, Stern, & Kinner, 2019; Golembeski et al., 2020b;
Mery, Majumder, Brown, & Dobrow, 2017). Ultimately, Venters and colleagues
conceptualize the triple aim of correctional health as patient safety, population
health, and human rights (MacDonald et al., 2013).
Climate Change, Hyperincarceration, and Health Inequities
The intersection of anthropogenic climate change and hyperincarceration
informs social and political determinants of health inequities (Dawes, 2020).
Information critical of the impending carceral and climate crises upon us can be
traced back to the 1970s (Alexander, 2012; Gilmore, 2007; Riccucci, 2018; Rich, 2019).
Climate vulnerability, which is exacerbated in carceral contexts, is a function of
exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to climate variability (Fullilove,
Izenberg, Golembeski, Stitelman, & Wallace, 2020; Méndez, 2020).
Hyperincarceration can be traced back to the Black Codes and convict leasing as
part of a continuum of racialized imprisonment (Bailey et al., 2017; Wildeman &
Figure 5 Structural Racism, Economic Deprivation and the Criminal Legal System. Source: Acker et al.
(2019). https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2019/01/mass-incarceration-threatens-health-
equity-in-america.html.
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 77
Wang, 2017). More vulnerable subpopulations within the criminal legal system, in-
cluding those experiencing accelerated aging and the elderly; neurological and mental
health conditions and particular comorbidities; isolation or limited mobility; and the
need for certain prescription medications, especially psychotropics, are more adversely
affected by extreme temperature exposure, climate‐related natural disasters, and
forced displacement (Martin‐Latry et al., 2007; Motanya & Valera, 2016).
Most jails and prisons are not adequately adapting to climate‐related changes
or equipping staff for related emergencies (Holt, 2015; Skarha et al., 2020). Given
the lack of systemic efforts to reduce rates of climate change and incarceration,
people inside prisons and jails remain among the most vulnerable populations
(Prins & Story, 2020). Climate adaptation efforts related to prisons and jails require
urgent attention to meet pressing social needs; however, the primary focus should
be on decarceration and improving structural determinants of health inequities.
There is a lack of original research on the health effects of incarcerated people's
exposure to extreme temperatures, natural disasters, and other climate‐related phe-
nomena, yet a few analytic and descriptive reviews exist (Motanya & Valera, 2016;
Prins & Story, 2020; Skarha et al., 2020). Motanya and Valera (2016)provide a de-
scriptive review of climate change and its negative effects on incarcerated populations
with a focus on climate‐related natural disasters. Case studies include Hurricane
Katrina and heat‐related fatalities in Texas prisons lacking indoor temperature regu-
lation (Motanya & Valera, 2016). The authors recommend solutions involving man-
agement, policy, health promotion, and environmental health frameworks, and mul-
tilevel governmental collaborations with those directly impacted by incarceration.
Skarha et al. (2020)examine the scientific evidence on the health effects of
extreme temperature exposure in carceral settings. The authors call for more re-
search, summarize existing relevant gray literature and court cases, and state how
vulnerable incarcerated subpopulations are particularly susceptible to the adverse
effects of extreme temperature exposure, especially heat. Diabetes, asthma, obesity,
heart conditions, and mental health conditions; prescription medications affecting
body temperature regulation and temperature sensitivity; accelerated aging and a
growing aging population; overcrowding; and poor indoor temperature regulation,
all exacerbate health and mortality risks within carceral institutions affected by
extreme temperature (Holt, 2015; Motanya & Valera, 2016; Skarha et al., 2020).
Mortality associated with extreme cold and heat exposure is difficult to precisely
track given that many primary illnesses are affected by extreme temperature ex-
posure (Bouchama et al., 2007; Skarha et al., 2020).
Prins and Story (2020)underscore the central role of “organized abandonment”in
urban and rural communities where prisons are located and where most people, who
are incarcerated, live and return.
11
In addition to citing Gilmore's extended discussion
of “organized abandonment,”Prins and Story (2020)posit ecogentrification and eco‐
apartheid as accounting for the wealthy's disproportionately larger ecological foot-
prints displacing poorer residents who bear the brunt of climate change's health and
safety threats (Gilmore, 2007). Incarceration as well as climate‐induced coercive mo-
bility, social isolation, and displacement incurs what Mindy Fullilove (2016:11)terms
“root shock,”which “is the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of
78 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
one's emotional ecosystem.”Furthermore, Gilmore associates organized abandonment
with the antistate state in suggesting governments that purport to ideologically sup-
port state withdrawal may actually increase state expenditure to achieve their
aims (2007).
Public health experts have advocated for routinizing mandatory data collection
focusing on criminal legal system populations, which are largely excluded from
national health surveys (Binswanger et al., 2019; Sufrin, Beal, Clarke, Jones, &
Mosher, 2019; Venters, 2019). Relatedly, a lack of accurate, systematic information
exists on the number of incarcerated people who die due to extreme temperature
exposure or how climate change may affect criminal legal system‐involved pop-
ulations at present and in the future (Motanya & Valera, 2016; Prins & Story, 2020;
Skarha et al., 2020). Public health expertise combined with enhanced monitoring,
accountability, and transparency is necessary.
Prison and jail‐attributable death, illness, and injury are receiving greater attention
(Massoglia,2008;Venters,2019). Increasing temperature exposure intensity will in-
evitably lead to an increase in preventable death, illness, and injury (Bark, 1998;
Bouchama et al., 2007; Mullins & White, 2019; Shindell et al., 2020).Forinstance,
Marcia Powell was incarcerated, exposed to extreme heat, and left to die. Skarha et al.
(2020,p.S42)recommend federal funding for “original epidemiological research on the
health impacts of extreme temperatures in incarceration settings and to define which
populations are most vulnerable.”Ultimately there is consensus on prioritizing de-
carceration, drug‐policy reform, and alternatives to incarceration, along with de-
carbonization, so as to minimize injury, illness, and death.
Climate Disasters, Hyperincarceration, and Crisis Response Management
Extreme weather events and climate events, with escalating frequency, severity,
and unpredictability, are common ways humans experience anthropogenic climate
change (Banholzer et al., 2014; Reed, Stansfield, Wehner, & Zarzycki, 2020;
Stott, 2016). The Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change IPCC (2018)predicts an
increase in heat waves, rising tropical cyclone wind speed, heavy precipitation
events, and increasing drought, flood, and landslide intensity in association with
climate change throughout the twenty‐first century (Banholzer et al., 2014).Prisons
not only have large full‐time permanent residential populations, but are often in
lower‐lying, less populated areas and prone to climate‐induced catastrophies, such as
floods and fires (Holt, 2015; Russell, 2014). Environmental hazard and climate threat
exposure inside prisons and jails further burden often overcrowded, ill‐equipped
facilities lacking inadequate healthcare services (Robbins, 2008; Venters, 2019).
National Institute of Corrections (NIC)guides for preparing for and re-
sponding to prison and jail emergencies have been assessed as outdated (Motanya
& Valera, 2016). The majority of emergency response checklists and documents for
jails and prisons are often unavailable, deficient, or unenforceable. Facilities and
staff inadequately train for disaster response and recovery, which differs from
practices associated with schools, hospitals, and other institutions. Resource limi-
tations, including a lack of generators, pumps, potable water, and food, further
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 79
exacerbate existing stressors and inequities (Robbins, 2008). In addition, people in
prisons and jails are vulnerable to violence, abuse, trauma, and dangerous con-
ditions during evacuation (National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union [ACLU], 2007; Robbins, 2008). Henry asserts that resource “allocation policy
should account for the needs of populations, which, because of social, economic,
cultural, and biological factors, are especially vulnerable to harms or injustices
during emergencies”(Meltzer Henry, 2019).
Texas’Hurricane Harvey, Florida's Hurricane Michael, and Illinois and
southwestern heat waves and other natural disasters have adversely impacted
vulnerable populations, including those within jails and prisons. During Hurricane
Sandy, Rikers Island Jail had no evacuation plan despite being located in an
evacuation zone and atop a toxic waste landfill (Prins & Story, 2020). Climate‐
related deaths have occurred within jails and prisons as well as during transport
(Hager & Santo, 2016). Wendy Newton and Nicolette Green were two mental
health patient detainees that drowned in the back of a transport van during
Hurricane Florence's larger and wetter aftermath due to climate change (McLaughlin
&Watts,2018;Skarhaetal.,2020).Thetwoescortingdeputies,whosurvived,drove
past a barrier amidst the storm, although there was no urgency to transport the women
between facilities (McLaughlin & Watts, 2018; Reed et al., 2020).
During a 2020 summer weekend, approximately 600 wildfires burned in
California, two of which are cited as the state's largest (Harshaw, 2020).The
Napa Valley region was evacuated except for the two correctional facilities
holding nearly 6,000 people. The California Department of Corrections removed
the prisons from the mandatory evacuation listing (refer to Figure 6). When there
Figure 6 Vacaville Police Evacuation Plan with Two Prison Facilities Within the Boundaries.
80 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
is a disaster or crisis, individuals in prisons and jails often do not help decide
what preparation or response efforts are best, despite the recommendations of
public health experts (Venters, 2020).
People who are currently incarceratedconstituteasource of firefighting
labor in states such as California. This reliance on exceedingly low wage labor
is estimated to save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually
(Fuller, 2020). Firefighters, who reside in California's prisons, earn $1 an hour
and withstand dangerous, deadly conditions (Fuller, 2020; Lowe, 2017).Six
related deaths have occurred over a 35‐year period in California.
12
Although
inmate labor in California can be traced back to the 1850s, the first incarcerated
people served as firefighters during World War II (Lowe, 2017). As climate
change and wildfires increase, states such as California, Arizona, Nevada,
Wyoming, and Georgia, may increase reliance on firefighting assistance from
those incarcerated, which holds both transformative as well as exploitive po-
tential (Feldman, 2020). Yet many county fire agencies will not hire previously
incarcerated individuals with felony convictions, while probation terms may
limit capacity to travel (Lowe, 2017). Recent positive developments include the
2020 California Penal Code section 1203.4b, which expunges the records of
certain men and women on the front lines of wildfire containment after they
serve their sentences (Moreno, 2020).
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)documents the harrowing expe-
riences of thousands of children and adults abandoned during Hurricane Katrina at
the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), which is notorious for mismanagement, neglect,
and cruelty (2007). While other residents were evacuated, detainees convicted of
minor offenses or not yet convicted, were deprived of food, water, ventilation, and
light for days amidst the chaos, only to be transported to facilities where they were
vulnerable to abuse (Robbins, 2008). The OPP lacked preparation and the emer-
gency response was woefully inadequate. The ACLU documents the Sheriff's office
hiring out “prisoners”at or below minimum wage after returning people in cus-
tody to the area despite ongoing safety assessments (National Prison Project of the
American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], 2007). In reflecting on Hurricane Katrina's
aftermath, the legal scholar Ira Robbins frames prison emergency preparedness as a
constitutional imperative (Robbins, 2008).
A White House Report itemizes lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina,
such as improving emergency management, citizen preparedness, planning,
and coordination (Robbins, 2008). The report concedes the lack of optimal
interdepartmental planning, coordination, and implementation and systemic
failure. Furthermore, there is no discussion of jails or prisons as part of
emergency planning and management (Menzel, 2006).Weibleetal.(2020)
underscore how government'snondecisionsbecomejustasimportantasde-
cisions that are made. Incarcerated populations are vulnerable and lacking
resources prior to any climate emergencies, which further underscores the
critical imperative to plan for their needs while minimizing reliance on in-
carceration (Meltzer Henry, 2019).
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 81
Climate Change, Land Use, Corrections, and Health
“Toxic prisons”underscore the increasing attention to jails and prisons’
proximity to federal Superfund sites and other contaminated areas (Bernd,
Losftus‐Farren, & Mitra, 2017). Approximately 600 federal and state prisons are
located within three miles of a Superfund site on the National Priorities List,
whereas over 100 prisons are within one mile of toxic sites. The U.S. Gov-
ernmental Accountability Office reports that 945 toxic waste sites, equivalent to
60 percent of Superfund sites, are vulnerable to climate change and necessitate
government intervention (U.S. Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2019).
Climate‐related extreme weather events increase hazardous waste release and
exposure risks, which are especially perilous for those confined to prisons and
jails (Russell, 2014).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)recently added a layer to the
Justice Screening and Mapping tool, which allows the public to overlay prison
locations with Superfund and hazardous waste sites (Loftus‐Farren, 2017). By 2011,
the EPA's “prisons initiative”to improve correctional compliance with environ-
mental regulations was shut down (Loftus‐Farren, 2017). That same year, the U.S.
Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons commissioned a report on
current sustainability tools, strategies, and practices within correctional facilities
(Jewkes & Moran, 2015). Moving forward, greater continuity and stand-
ardizationprison emergency preparedness in general and the lack of continuity
regarding planning for natural disasters.
The positive impact of prison building, particularly in economically depressed
rural areas where prisons may be viewed as akin to hospitals, schools, and shop-
ping centers, may contrast their otherwise less desirable land‐use status similar to
incinerators, landfills, and power plants (Eason, 2017). Negative environmental
impacts of jails and prisons are not systematically documented, and most con-
struction projects do not account for prison or jail population health outcomes
(Bradshaw, 2018). Furthermore, federal environmental violations are distributed
across U.S. prisons, with 241 violations in Oklahoma alone (Bernd et al., 2017;
Funes, 2017). Lastly, the widespread concern of contaminated water alongside
extreme heat poses serious health concerns, given the nearly 1,200 actions levied
against correctional facilities under the Safe Drinking Water Act (Bernd et al., 2017).
The politics of incarceration and climate science radically influence regions
endemic to infectious disease. The incidence of valley fever (Coccidioides), asso-
ciated with fungus spores from desert dust, is increasing due to climate change
(Coates & Fox, 2018; Gorris, Treseder, Zender, & Randerson, 2019). In 2015, a
federally ordered screening found that 8 percent of people incarcerated in
California prisons had the fungal disease in comparison to the state's overall in-
fection rate of less than 1 percent (Bayles, 2016). Nearly a majority of the human
population can develop sore throats and muscle pains, which may further develop
into symptoms, including skin ulcers, bone lesions, and heart and lung in-
flammation (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). Black in-
dividuals are 14 times more likely than White individuals to suffer complications,
82 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
while Filipinos are 175 times more likely (Ruddy et al., 2011). The disproportionate
representation of people of color in California prisons and jails throughout hot, dry
regions renders these populations further vulnerable. One recent report finds 3,500
California inmates with valley fever and 50 related deaths (Bernd et al., 2017).
Climate change observations estimate that areas affected by yellow fever will
double due to increased temperatures and precipitation, with a 50 percent increase
of ill people by 2100 (Gorris et al., 2019).
Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ)views racism, heteropatriarchy, classism, nativism, ableism,
ageism, speciesism (the belief that one species is superior to another), and other forms of inequality
as intersecting axes of domination and control (Pellow, 2018, p. 19).
Pellow (2019)posits the majority Brown and Black town of Fayette, Pennsyl-
vania, which houses the state correctional institution, as a site where criminaliza-
tion, climate injustice, and environmental injustice converge.
13
Incarcerated in-
dividuals here developed respiratory and heart problems, brain and liver damage,
and cancer due to coal ash exposure, which contains arsenic, lead, and mercury,
plus other potentially hazardous heavy metals (Bernd et al., 2017). According to a
2014 report, 81 percent of incarcerated people reported respiratory, throat, and
sinus conditions, 68 percent reported stomach problems, and over 50 percent cited
adverse skin conditions. Furthermore, from 2011 through 2013, 11 of 17 in-
carcerated adults who died had developed cancer (Bernd et al., 2017). Richard
Mosley filed a related lawsuit against the prison where he was formerly in-
carcerated and an active Fayette Justice Health Committee healthcare campaign
member (Pellow, 2019).
Extreme Temperature Exposure in Carceral Settings and Related Health Effects
The deadliest weather disaster is heat, which kills up to 12,000 lives annually in
the U.S. (Shindell et al., 2020). Daniel Holt proposes adaptation strategies to address
how heat waves and rising temperatures, associated with climate change, affect
jails and prisons (2015).
14
A Vera Institute of Justice report reveals high temper-
atures and poor ventilation in Louisiana segregation units as factors underlying
increases in conflict, aggression, and other behaviors that result in infractions
(Cloud, LaChance, Smith, & Glarza, 2019). In addition, a positive correlation exists
between self‐harm incidents and higher heat indexes, which were particularly
pronounced during the summer. Health effects of heat exposure include increases
in aggression, suicide, self‐harm, poor cognitive functioning, overall poor mental
health, heatstroke, heart attacks, and death (Cloud et al., 2019; Holt, 2015; Mullins &
White, 2019; U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016).
Jail and prison temperatures have been known to rise as high as 150°F when
accounting for the heat index, which is a measure of how hot it actually feels when
humidity is factored in with the temperature (Chammah, 2017; Chudzinski, 2018).
Yet, prisons in 13 states in the warmest areas of the U.S. lack air conditioning
(Jones, 2019). Although the NIC requires informing wardens and assistant
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 83
commissioners when temperatures are below 68°F in all areas and above 80°F in
specific areas, there are limited federal laws or state and local legislation mandating
temperature control in prisons or jails (Asgarian, 2019; Skarha et al., 2020).
Socially vulnerable subpopulations increasing within prisons and jails, such as
those contending with aging and comorbid medical conditions, are particularly
sensitive to extreme temperatures (Chammah, 2017; Skarha et al., 2020). The
prevalence of comorbid chronic conditions and the side effects of many medi-
cations for mental health conditions, high blood pressure, diabetes, and hyper-
tension, contribute toward inhibiting the body's capacity to regulate heat and re-
duce body temperature as well as increasing sensitivity (Skarha et al., 2020). People
with mental illness, who are grossly overrepresented in prisons and jails, are four
times more likely to die of heat‐related complications (Bouchama et al., 2007;
Mullins & White, 2019).
Similar to Marcia Powell's death in an outside cell in Arizona, Timothy
Souders of Michigan died while in solitary confinement (Erickson &
Erickson, 2008; Wahab & Panichelli, 2013).TimothySouders’autopsy attributes
the cause of the 21‐year‐old's death to hyperthermia with dehydration during an
August 2006 heatwave (Alexander, 2008). Yet, Mr. Souders’death, similar to that
of Marcia Powell, was ruled an accident (Alexander, 2008).Four‐points re-
straints, with an independent medical monitor called “torture,”were used on
Souders, who was incarcerated for resisting arrest and destroying police prop-
erty (Bersot & Arrigo, 2011). Souders, who lived with mental illness, was dis-
ciplined for noncompliance with prison rules. Surveillance video reveals his
mental and physical deterioration over the course of four days of being shackled
in solitary confinement (Alexander, 2008; Bersot & Arrigo, 2011).
The Role of the Courts in Addressing Extreme Temperature Exposure During
Incarceration
Hoffman (Sharona, 2009)convincingly argues that amidst emergencies, vul-
nerable populations, including those incarcerated, are entitled to significant pro-
tection under existing legal and ethical frameworks, existing federal and state civil
rights provisions, and emergency response laws. Many improvements to prison
and jail conditions and healthcare services have resulted from injunctive correc-
tional litigation (Schlanger, 2006; Skarha et al., 2020). Incarcerated individuals have
successfully invoked their Eighth Amendment rights in lawsuits pertaining to
cigarette smoke and asbestos exposure (Bayles, 2016). Skarha et al. (2020)identify
over 1,200 Eighth Amendment cases regarding rights violations from temperature
conditions within correctional contexts from 1980 to 2019, including both cold and
heat exposure affecting those outdoors, in solitary confinement, and in transport.
Temperature regulation, heat or cold mitigation measures, and extreme tem-
peratures have been consistent features of litigation and protest involving people
who are detained and incarcerated. In 2010, New Hampshire state prison residents
held a hunger strike to protest extreme heat and refused to eat until fans were
installed (Ridgeway & Casella, 2010). In 2009, more than 400 men incarcerated
84 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
during Hurricane Rita filed a federal Tort Claims Act lawsuit, which was soon
dismissed, in response to negligence and substandard conditions, such as a lack of
electricity, food, water, sanitation, and health care (Robbins, 2008). Relatedly, a
federal judge ordered the Louisiana State Penitentiary to ensure temperatures on
death row were lowered to 88°F after a heat index of 109°F was recorded
(Chammah, 2017).
Although a 1977 Texas statute mandates that county jails maintain temper-
atures between 65 and 85°F, this state law does not apply to prisons where heat
index temperatures of 150°F are recorded (Human Rights Clinic at the University of
Texas School of Law, 2014). Regrettably, 70 percent of people inside state prisons
are held in the majority of facilities lacking air conditioning (Clarke &
Zoukis, 2018). Cost was cited as a reason to forgo retrofitting facilities with climate
control. Some staff administrative areas were well equipped with air
conditioning, yet Texas corrections staff have received over $500,000 in workers
compensation claims associated with heat‐related illnesses and injuries
(Chammah, 2017). A university law clinic documented seven heat‐related deaths
between 2007 and 2014 (Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of
Law, 2014). In addition, The Texas Tribune reported at least ten inmate deaths, which
are associated with a federal class action during a 2011 statewide heatwave, which
is associated with a federal class action lawsuit. Larry McCollum died of hyper-
thermia due to heat‐related causes in Texas Hutchins State Jail in 2011 while
serving a twelve‐month sentence for check fraud (Holt, 2015).
A judge issued a scathing indictment of hot prisons constituting cruel and
unusual punishment and ordered the state of Texas to place medically vulnerable
inmates in air conditioning (McCullough, 2018b). The State Attorney General's
office spent over $7 million in legal fees before reaching a 2018 settlement regarding
a prison holding 1000 inmates. Extreme temperatures are increasingly more prev-
alent throughout the nation and will only further adversely impact people in
prisons and jails. Texas is far from the only state citing a lack of fiscal or political
will as reasons to inadequately regulate temperatures within prisons. Incarcerated
persons in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York have filed complaints and
lawsuits in response to freezing weather. For instance, inmates’families reported
inadequate heating during a 2018 winter period in Texas (McCullough, 2018a).
Several courts in states, such as Arizona, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Texas, have
decided related cases in favor of incarcerated people.
The Political Economy of Climate Injustice and Hyperincarceration in the
United States
Climate and criminal legal reform and advocacy efforts face challenges, such as
dark money associated with correctional and extractive energy firms, which pri-
oritize profit motives over human health and welfare (Guilbeault, 2019; Dunlap &
Peter, 2013). The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit or-
ganization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives, has
drafted model bills for Truth in Sentencing Bills and prison labor expansion
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 85
(Cooper, Heldman, Ackerman, & Farrar‐Meyers, 2016). Additionally, ALEC dis-
seminated materials downplaying the science and risks of global warming while
overestimating fiscal implications (Hertel‐Fernandez, 2019; Leonard, 2019). ALEC
excels at forging associations with powerful conservative politicians, lobbyists,
activists, and business interests in order to influence state legislatures.
One in five of ALEC model prison bills promote increased reliance on pri-
vatized goods, services, and facilities;prisonlabor;andalarger“criminal
population”in jails and prisons (Cooper, Heldman, Ackerman, &
Farrar‐Meyers, 2016). ALEC's Criminal Justice Taskforce put forth bills that in-
crease state correctional expenditures while endorsing harsher sentencing laws
(Cooper, Heldman, Ackerman, & Farrar‐Meyers, 2016; Leonard, 2019).Extractive
energy firms constitute the most politically active and powerful ALEC con-
stituents in averting climate change and global warming mitigation
(Hertel‐Fernandez, 2019). The Koch Brothers, who directly benefit from prison
labor, have financed ALEC and the Criminal Justice Taskforce. Additionally, the
Koch Family Foundations have donated over $145 million to groups working to
discredit climate change science and policy solutions from 1997 through 2018
(Leonard, 2019).
Michaels (2020)traces climate breakdown denial to the establishment of organ-
izations and playbooks for science and public relations against the public interest.
Friel (2019)identifies the “consumptagenic system”as “an integrated network of
policies, processes, governance, and modes of understanding that fuel unhealthy,
environmentally destructive production and consumption,”(pp. xxi–xxii).Kramer
(2020)conceptualizes climate‐affecting actions, including extraction, marketing and
burning fossil fuels, deleting scientific data, and militarizing responses to climate
associated migration, as crimes given the close association with morally blameworthy
harms, public condemnation, and public sanctions. Achieving climate justice, ac-
cording to Kramer (2020), requires a global nonviolent insurgency and a restructuring
of the capitalist economic system, rather than criminal laws and prosecutions.
Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly received
the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for developing and disseminating information on an-
thropogenic climate change for politicians and the public, yet political skepticism,
scientific literacy deficits, and government mistrust thwart meaningful climate
justice protections and progress (Riccucci, 2018; Schiermeier & Tollefson, 2007). The
2008 Second Chance Act and the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act preceded the First Step
Act of 2018, which has already led to federal prison population reductions. Fifteen
Many policymakers, researchers, and politicians support alternatives to in-
carceration, drug‐policy reform, and decarceration alongside reducing punish-
ment's collateral consequences (Golembeski et al., 2020b; Krieger, 2020;
USCCR, 2019).
Story and Prins note similarities throughout climate and criminal justice reform
movements, and posit the Green New Deal as an opportunity to decarcerate,
provide employment and housing, and commit to climate and social justice (Prins
& Story, 2020; Story & Prins, 2019). Decarbonization and decarceration interests
have converged in challenging new or existing prison facilities and related adverse
86 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
environmental impacts in various areas, including Kentucky, California, and
Pennsylvania (Bernd et al., 2017; Eason, 2017; Story & Prins, 2019). For instance, the
Prison Ecology Project, founded in 2015, began to unite concerns regarding criminal
justice reform with those related to environmental sustainability and justice
(Pellow, 2019).
Conclusion
Both hyperincarceration and climate change are sobering realities of our
times, with direct and indirect health and health system effects for individuals
and communities. Hyperincarceration and climate crisis as determinants of health
inequities constitute a Black Swan to some, despite reformers and abolitionists
raising the alarm around climate and carceral crises for decades (Prins &
Story, 2020; Story & Prins, 2019; Taleb, 2007). Expanded humane public policy
protections are critical in addressing intersectional social‐structural drivers, such
as anthropogenic climate change and hyperincarceration (Bowleg, 2020; Watts
et al., 2018). Major reforms, including greater transparency, accountability, and
human rights protections with a focus on decarceration and decarbonization are
necessary in order to mitigate current and anticipated health threats and the
adverse consequences of large‐scale incarceration and climate change (Story &
Prins, 2020).
Collaboration between public health professionalsandcommunitiesisnecessary
in order to advance efforts toward decarbonization, decarceration, and communica-
tion of attendant public health threats and opportunities. Improved planning, inter-
vention, and reform efforts must include correctional institutions as well as directly
impacted people and communities (Méndez, 2020; Venters, 2020). Decarbonization,
decarceration, and addressing related collateral consequences of carceral and climate
crises include upstream efforts that will best prevent injury, illness, and death. Local,
national, and global sociopolitical movements, legal reform, and efforts to alleviate
harms related to structurally and interpersonally induced violence and trauma re-
sulting from climate and carceral injustices, are critical for a just world.
Cynthia A. Golembeski, is a JD/PhD student at Rutgers University, School of Law
and School of Public Affairs and Administration; teaches in the New Jersey
Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons Consortium; and is a Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar.
Kimberly R. Dong, DrPH, MS, RD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Ans Irfan, is a multidisciplinary climate change and health researcher, faculty, and
director of Climate & Health Equity Practice Fellowship at the Milken Institute School of
Public Health, George Washington University, also serving as a fellow with the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars Program.
Golembeski/Breen/Irfan: Carceral and Climate Crises and Health Inequities 87
Notes
Conflicts of interest: None declared.
Corresponding author: Cynthia A. Golembeski, cag348@rutgers.edu
1. Jails are typically short‐term holding facilities under local jurisdiction for the newly arrested, people
awaiting trial or sentencing, and individuals serving short sentences. State or federal prisons are
institutional facilities where individuals who are convicted serve longer sentences.
2. Venters writes that “jail‐attributable”deaths [or injuries] are caused by actions or events taken inside
correctionalfacilities. Venters (2019)suggests that jail‐attributable deaths represent from 25 to 33
percent of overall jail deaths, and the Department Of Justice or the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention should facilitate mandatory reporting of rates of these types of deaths across jail settings.
3. Sufrin (2017)explains how “mass incarceration”is a widely used term to reference the vast rise in
how many people have been incarcerated over the past three decades. Sufrin prioritizes Wacquant's
term, “hyperincarceration,”to clarify that the surge in incarceration has not involved the masses but
rather disproportionately targeted poor, black men (Wacquant, 2010).
4. A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests)by changes in
the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically
decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to
persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use (Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2012).
5. CO
2
is a naturally occurring gas fixed by photosynthesis into organic matter. A byproduct of fossil
fuel combustion and biomass burning, it is also emitted from land‐use changes and other industrial
processes. It is the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas that affects the Earth's radiative balance.
It is the reference gas against which other greenhouse gases are measured, thus having a Global
Warming Potential of 1 (IPCC, 2012).
6. Cumulative CO
2
emissions represent the total sum of CO
2
emissions produced from fossil fuels and
cement since 1751 and is measured in metric tons.
7. Conservatives and liberals have both debated the terminology that best frames climate change. Frank
Lutz encouraged the Bush Administration to convince voters of the scientific community's lack of
consensus regarding global warming, whereas George Lakoff suggests “climate crisis”is the most
apt turn of phrase (Gore, 2006; Lakoff, 2010; Raz, 2010).
8. Greenhouse gases are gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic,
which absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of thermal infrared
radiation emitted by the Earth's surface, by the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property
causes the greenhouse effect. Water vapor (H
2
O), carbon dioxide (CO
2
), nitrous oxide (N
2
O),
methane (CH
4
), and ozone (O
3
)are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.
Moreover, there are a number of entirely human‐made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as
the halocarbons and other chlorine‐and bromine‐containing substances, dealt with under the
Montreal Protocol. Besides CO
2
,N
2
O, and CH
4
, the Kyoto Protocol deals with the greenhouse gases
sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs)(IPCC, 2012).
9. Women and men involved in the criminal legal system include adults serving sentences in prisons
and jails, awaiting trial or sentencing, and individuals under community supervision. We try to use
person‐first and nonstigmatizing or pejorative language (Tran et al., 2018).
10. Collateral consequences are “formal legal and regulatory sanctions that the convicted bear beyond
the sentence imposed by a criminal court; and the informal impacts of criminal [legal system] contact
on families, communities, and democracy”(Kirk & Wakefield, 2018).
11. Organized abandonment is a concept that has been utilized by Peter Drucker, David Harvey, and
Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Prins and Story (2020)cite Gilmore (2007)in suggesting that organized
abandonment of state responsibilities to citizens and residents to provide basic levels of safety and
security “is often accompanied by expanded carceral infrastructure rather than investment, re-
generation, and cultivation.”
12. California's incarcerated men and women typically earn between 8 and 95 cents an hour in making
office furniture for state employees, state license plates, or prison uniforms. A California con-
servation camp housing women pays a maximum of $2.56 a day in camp and $1 an hour when
fighting fires (Lowe, 2017).
88 World Medical & Health Policy, 13:1
13. Pellow describes mass incarceration as “an extractive activity that could be reframed as an envi-
ronmental injustice. [sic] After all, family members, friends, neighbors, co‐workers, and colleagues
are literally siphoned off from their homes and social networks every day; they are critical resources
for maintaining the functioning of our communities. Why not think of that as a form of environ-
mental injustice”(Pellow, 2018, p. 98).
14. Holt (2015)introduces adaptation options: Reduction of the incarcerated population; Reduction of
the prisoner and correctional staff's heat stress susceptibility; phasing out of most vulnerable fa-
cilities; retrofitting adaptable facilities by maximizing passive cooling; building new, sustainable,
adapted, and resilient facilities; requiring adequate cooling in private facilities; along with improving
collaboration and cooperation.
15. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode
Island introduced legislation enabling eligible prisoners to receive sentence reductions as part of
curbing prison population growth in 2015.
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