Prison Ecology Project

Prisoners inside the Elmore and Escambia prisons, directly across from the new 4,000 bed “mega-prison” sites, resist construction alongside local nature enthusiasts

By Panagioti Tsolkas / Prison Legal News After more than three years of a controversial environmental review process for the proposed USP Letcher, conducted by the Bureau of Prisons and their consulting firm Cardno, lawyers filed a lawsuit in November 2018 on behalf of 21 federal priso...

This week, a global climate justice convergence in San Francisco will coincide with the national prison strike. Alongside the Prison Ecology Project and Fight Toxic Prisons, Nati...

In July of this year, former prisoners and their family members raised concerns about a variety of prison issues at a hearing with state lawmakers. This included repeated concerns with water quality at multiple facilities. One former prisoner stated that water in the East Arkansas Unit was not even ...

By Panagioti Tsolkas Wayland Coleman, a prisoner at MCI-Norfolk, stepped out of the shower and noticed something strange last year. It was as if his towel was, in his words, “was used to wipe dirt off the floor.” [Image of Coleman to the right] “I don’t know exactly what is in...

The area was once locally renown for coal mining and uranium milling, and while the beauty of the land endured despite the industrial activity, there’s not much aside from prisons happening there economically anymore.

Two years ago, the concept of Prison Ecology was introduced to the world, building off the work of jailhouse lawyers, scholars and activists around the country. On many occasions spanning the last 4 decades of the prison boom (in which prisoner populations increased by 700%), prisoners and ...

Over the past week, the Prison Ecology Project, the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons and our allies have been reviewing the Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed 2018 budget and listening in o...

Recent conditions at Parnall have been literally poisoning people through prolonged exposure to emissions from human feces.

From FightToxicPrisons.org First, a huge thanks to the people who came out to the Civic Media Center earlier this month to help send a mass mailing from the Camp...

The Texas prison system, known as TDCJ, has become a litmus test for dealing with toxic environmental conditions for prisoners. Earlier this year, prisoners from the Wallace Pack unit and their advocates on the outside succeeded in compelling a judge to order clean water to people held in that facil...

Washington, D.C. – The Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) submitted a public comment to the Environmental Protection Agency today that provides input on the agency’s final draft of the EJ 2020 Action Agenda...

from FightToxicPrisons.org First off, a huge “Thank You” to the folks that helped make the convergence last month happen. There are ...

In just 2 days, we will converge in DC to network, organize and take action against the toxic prison system.

Here are five things you can do today to help build the #PrisonEcology movement and the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons

Many of you have likely seen the news by now of the latest toxic prison atrocity, where prisoners in Flint have been lied to and stuck using contaminated water. We know this is not an isolated phenomenon—things like this are happening in prisons all over the country.

By now, much of the world knows that politicians like Michigan Governor Rick Synder sat on their hands while knowing that public water was poisoning the residents of Flint with lead and Legionnaire’s Disease.

A new jail in Pensacola is being considered for 26 acres which was home to the Escambia Wood Treating Company (ETC) who was found to have contaminated an underground aquifer and hundreds of thousands of tons of soil.

Near 10,000 people held in this private prisons complex requires treating between 750,000 to one million gallons of water every day in drought-stricken Pinal County.

Pope Francis to visit prison with history of environmental problems

HRDC's Prison Ecology Project files an updated comment on the Bureau of Prisons' final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Letcher County plan

This article represents an environmental epidemic among prisons nationwide, and indicates exactly why “the greenest prison is an empty one” ... The cache of state records obtained by the Human Rights Defense Center here reveals that roughly half-a-million gallons of sewage water and other contaminates have been dumped from the Monroe prison’s wastewater system over the last eight years, polluting rivers and wetlands in the Puget Sound watershed.

The half-a-billion dollar cost of building this prison isn't its only problem; along with the over-incarceration that is tearing human communities apart, there is also a serious environmental toll.

The Human Rights Defense Center’s Prison Ecology Project is creating tools to dismantle toxic prisons. We are the only group focused on the intersection of environment and mass incarceration. Your contributions will provide needed start-up funds for on-the-ground work to bridge the gap between criminal justice reform and environmental movements.

The EPA has never cited the health and safety of prisoners exposed to such environmental conditions as a factor in prison inspections or in the permitting of new facilities.

Letcher County residents may have to wait until the end of the summer to find out whether or not a federal prison will be constructed in Letcher County.

Summary of pending HRDC comment to the EPA on the inclusion of prisoner populations in environmental justice demographic statistics and regulatory input for permitting

The prison at Fayette sits adjacent to a massive coal ash dump site. For years, local LaBelle residents, and more recently prison guards at Fayette, have complained that the site has been making them sick.

A panel exploring the intersections between mass incarceration and environmental degradation

All the LEED certifications in the world can’t cover up the constant flow of atrocities associated with prisons-for-profit, but that’s not going to stop them from trying.