A new bill from Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) targets environmental hazards that are harming prison workers and inmates.
The Environmental Health in Prisons Act would require the Federal Bureau of Prisons to implement an independent advisory board responsible for conducting research on environmental threats, including information on air, water quality as well as mold presence, contagious diseases or dangerously low or high temperatures.
The board would then have to recommend policies on how to mitigate such hazards by offering reports that outline protective measures.
Co-sponsored by fellow Democratic Massachusetts lawmaker, Sen. Edward Markey, the bill’s goal is to “improve the environmental health outcomes” for people inside prison walls. A study published by Earth Island Journal in 2017 found Superfund sites, environmental programs created to address abandoned hazardous waste sites, were within miles of several prisons.
“People who are incarcerated are no less deserving of having their dignity and humanity respected — and that includes clean air, water, and living environments,” Pressley said in a statement. “As we work to dismantle our shameful mass incarceration crisis, our bill would affirm the fundamental right to a safe and healthy environment for every person behind the wall.”
At the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, prisons suffered at higher rates than the general population, and experts think poor facility ventilation contributed to it. Research from the Prison Policy Initiative found close to 13 states in the South and Midwest go without adequate air conditioning inside.
According to the study, almost half of all U.S. prisons are housed near water sources that are likely contaminated with described “forever chemicals” that put nearly one million incarcerated people at risk of negative long-term health effects. “As we work to reduce the number of people behind bars, we must also ensure that those currently incarcerated have access to clean air, water, and living environments, are treated with dignity and respect, and can live in conditions that aren’t dangerous and dehumanizing,” Markey said in a statement.
According to NBC News, if the legislation passes, agencies, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, will be instructed to make any exposure to environmental hazards public. It would also lead to a grant program for state, local, and tribal facilities to gather data in state prisons and jails that deal with inadequate conditions.
Prison rights advocates are celebrating the bill. William Ragland, an inmate who heads the African American Coalition Committee at MCI-Norfolk, said he hopes data will show how racial disparities in prisons and jails are persistent with the nation’s longstanding reputation of “environmental injustices” hindering Black and brown communities.
“Incarcerated people get the bottom of the barrel when it comes to food, healthcare, and environmental protection. But these inequities aren’t just hurting people behind bars,” Ragland said in a statement. “Toxic prison environments are just a continuation of the pollution that affects many Black communities in Massachusetts and across the country.”
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