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Hai Zhou
Human Rights Defense Center
Lake Worth, Florida

Thanks for checking out my fourth blog. It’s time to wrap up my internship and I would like to share some of my thoughts with you.

During the conversations I have had with many people, one of the most common questions asked of me is why I am advocating for the better treatment for inmates. They hold fast to the belief that none of the efforts for improving the health of prisoners is worth it, and their major arguments reflect two perspectives: 1) that these people committed crimes and therefore don’t deserve any kind of improvement in their lives, or 2) that prisons in the U.S.  are already like “luxury hotels,” compared to those in other countries.

Even if prisons in the U.S. are better than those in most other countries, that does not necessarily mean we should stop making improvements. The main people who can benefit from the improved health of prisoners are none other than the public. We know healthcare costs make up around 17% of the country’s GDP, and according to a report by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 5% of the population consumes 50% of health care expenditures. Inmates, being a vulnerable population, are susceptible to health risks and diseases, and to ignore prevention and early treatment for them in prisons only increases economic burdens later.

The U.S. hosts only 5% of the world’s population but is home to nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. Due to the tougher sanctions on crimes, the use of longer sentences, and the War on Drugs, among other issues, so many non-serious, non-violent, and non-sexual offenders are put behind bars. Other offenders are sentenced to prison for a time too long to be justified. Many of the inmates in this country are exposed to unclean water, black mold, valley fever, toxic materials, infectious diseases and solitary confinement, but they do not deserve this.

My internship at the Human Rights Defense Center has been relatively short, but the lessons I have learned are life-changing. Improving the health of prisoners is a hard sell, and human rights are never easily gained. Yet, considering that the population of incarcerated people in the U.S. is equal to that of Houston, it is critical for us to differentiate punishment from correction; what we need to do more of is to cure and reform rather than punish and ignore health rights.

Hai Zhou
Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC)
Lake Worth, FL, United States

Hey Guys! Thanks for checking out my third blog. Getting tired of all the academic ideas and don’t know how to relate to them? No worries, because in this blog, I would like to share with you some participatory experiences I’ve had.

From June 2-5, I went to Denton, Texas, to attend the second national Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons following last year’s initial gathering in Washington, DC. I participated in two days of panels and workshops in which more than 100 people from all over the country came together in the environmental science hall of University of North Texas, and on the last day I joined a protest in front of the FMC Carswell in an attempt to raise people’s awareness of the environmental health of inmates and to show our resolution to fight mass incarceration.

People participating in the panels were from all walks of life—former prisoners, those whose parents or children have been incarcerated, journalists and staff writers covering environmental journals, and those like me, who are doing research on environmental justice and the health of inmates. We discussed research on mass incarceration and its social implications, listened to former inmates sharing their stories about unfair treatment before and after being incarcerated, and talked to current prisoners via phone about their living conditions.

Among all the conversations, health stands out as a prominent issue, and it is indeed a perennial concern at all levels of correctional facilities. Talking via phone, one current prisoner complained about the overheating in summer. The only solution given was to drink more water—water found to contain arsenic 2.5 to 4.5 times the standard set by the EPA. Thankfully, after a lawsuit, the prison brought in bottled water and has recently installed a water filter.

Several former inmates discussed their solitary confinement experience and mentioned that it led to them experiencing mental health issues. Participants who had children in prison shared stories about how their children lost more than 20 pounds during incarceration and how they were neglected when they requested medical treatment, despite the fact that their conditions worsened over time.

We know that health care is a basic human right, and I believe that health should be guaranteed based on the simple fact that one is a human being. Everybody should have access to nutritious food, clean water, some private space, and a healthy social relationship with others. With that in mind, we were ready to make our voice heard.

On June 5, we went to FMC Carswell to hold a demonstration regarding toxic prisons. Carswell, a federal female prison located within one mile of the Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, a Superfund site, is known for offering insufficient health care despite being a medical center. People raised banners that read “Fight Toxic Prisons” and used a bullhorn to chant, “You are not forgotten! You are not alone! We will fight to bring you home!” while marching down the street towards Carswell.

After the demonstration, I wondered for a long time about what the effects of the convergence and demonstration might be. I think the biggest impact is that we sent a message to all inmates that we care about them, that we believe health is a human right and will continue to fight for them not because they are prisoners, but because they are people.

Hai Zhou
Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC)
Lake Worth, FL, United States

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking out my second blog about mass incarceration and environmental health. I am now in Lake Worth, a beautiful place where I am welcomed by the beautiful sunshine every day!  My reverie with the wonderful weather and beautiful beaches, however, soon vanishes when I start my work. The topic of my study is not very appealing, and in fact it is a bit dreary. In this blog I would like to share a few thoughts and findings about the Prison Ecology Project.

After having an in-depth conversation with Paul Wright and Alex Friedmann, two leaders of HRDC, I had a clearer picture of how the environmental hazards are affecting prisoners and staff inside correctional facilities, as well as people living in the adjacent community. The idea of toxic prisons can arise from two different types of circumstances: the site where a prison is located is in close proximity to environmental hazards (i.e., landfill, abandoned coal mine, waste dump site), or the prison itself is the source of pollutants (i.e., improper discharge of sewage, dumping of coal ash they use to power the generator). Given that prisoners are an invisible population—most prisons are placed in remote areas out of the sight of general public—we want to raise awareness about the environmental factors at play by making more information accessible to the general public.

We figured out that there are two ways of procuring the needed information. We can use the database of the prospective state agencies to search data and documents, and if these are not available on their websites, we can capitalize on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I started drafting public record request letters and sending them to individual state agencies that are in charge of environmental protection. The requested information includes actual pollution violations, as opposed to violation of paperwork, by correctional facilities in each corresponding state over the past five years.

I have found related documents from Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Utah, thanks to their transparency and user-friendly website design. Throughout the open record request process, most states’ environmental agencies have been very responsive, making the research project less daunting than it seems to be. So far, I have received records and documents regarding environmental violations from the states of Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia, and I would like to express my gratitude for their gracious support.

A review of these incident and compliance reports reveals that many correctional facilities, both state prisons and local jails, have some issues with discharging sewage into local rivers either on an expired permit or in excess of the permitted level. Other violations include potential contamination of drinking water supplies, dumping coal ash next to a prison complex rather than a waste dump site, and air pollution that exceeds opacity limit.

As I mentioned in my first blog, the fight for prisoners’ environmental health is no easy task, especially in a time when the Trump administration aims to eliminate the EPA’s environmental justice office, whose major function is to protect people from getting exposed to environmental hazards (you can find a link below). The framing of toxicity is key to improving the abhorrent conditions: besides winning the public’s sympathy for inmates, we need to acknowledge the fact that prisons themselves can be sources of environmental hazards. Hopefully, by exposing this information to the public, more people will be cognizant of the toxicity of prisons, will pay more attention to the health conditions of the inmates inside, and will demand criminal justice reform.

Hai Zhou
Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC)
Lake Worth, FL, United States

Hi all! My name is Hai Zhou and I am a first-year graduate student at Wagner School of Public Service specializing in public and nonprofit policy. This summer I will undertake an internship at Human Rights Defense Center, and I will explore the violations of prisoners’ health rights, with a focus on their environmental health.

The United States has only 5% of the world population, yet it is home to approximately 20% of the total prisoners across the globe. This is a salient problem, and people are starting to pay attention to the social and economic implications of mass incarceration. However, one issue seems to elude people’s minds—environmental health concerns.

In the 1980s, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to fund the effort to clean up environmental hazards, and since then, the EPA has been responsible for making sure that people’s environmental health is protected from hazardous wastes. There is one group, however, that has been constantly neglected by the EPA, and they are none other than prisoners. Living on or next to hazardous sites such as abandoned coal mines, landfills, and former nuclear power plants greatly increases prisoners’ risk of getting cancer.

Moreover, some prisons in the southwestern part of the country are located on hot spots of Coccidioidomycosis, a disease that disproportionately affects ethnic minorities, who are much more likely to end up in prisons than white people. Some prisons are located where natural disasters (i.e., Hurricane Katrina) are frequent, and there are no evacuation plans when disasters strike. Many jails and prisons are poorly ventilated and are not air-conditioned, and overheating can increase inmates’ risk of cardiovascular diseases.

I am interested in learning a few things from this project:

1. The mass incarceration process.
2. The relative burden that environmental health places on prisoners, compared to other health concerns such as HIV/AIDS and TB.
3. What nonprofits can do to make policy changes.
4. The potential role of the Eighth Amendment in protecting prisoners.

Currently, criminal justice reform is not on many lawmakers’ agenda, and few people care about prisoners. Improving prisoners’ living condition is no easy task and is a hard to sell to the public. The framing of this issue is key to making change. Human rights are never easily achieved, and that is why we need to work hard to protect them.