Why Environmentalists Should Continue to Stand with Prisoners on August 19

by Panagioti Tsolkas / FightToxicPrisons.org

On August 19, 2017, prisoner activists and their allies have organized the Millions for Prisoners’ Human Rights March to take place in Washington DC, and solidarity actions across the country inside and outside of prisons. The A19 events are now only a week away; its time to step up and make commitments to participate. If you have not planned something already, it’s not too late. Whip up some signs and banners, pull together some friends and head to DC or pick one of the 5000+ jails, prisons and detention centers closest to you. [This map might help.]

If you’re still unsure about why an environmentalist should care about what’s happening inside the prison system, read on…

Over the past several years a nationwide movement has been built around the intersection of prison slavery, environmental health and ecological resistance. Prison Ecology Project, the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons and the dozens of organizations, academics and news outlets who’ve joined us have literally put this issue on the map. [Here’s a link to that again.]

Organizations ranging from radical to mainstream have faced the fact that the prison system is a source of industrial pollution, and rather than lumping prisoners in as toxic elements themselves, we’ve articulated very clearly that prisoners are victims of this industry. Additionally, we’ve shown that these jailhouse activists are also at the forefront of the environmental justice movement by fighting mass incarceration and its toxic footprint.

Last September, this informal alliance of environmentalists and prisoners manifested itself as part of the largest coordinated nationwide prison labor strike in U.S. history. While environmental health concerns were far from the only issue on the table, they were prominently noted in many areas that participated in actions on the inside and the outside.

That effort in September, which aimed to highlight the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising, was largely focused on the use of prison slavery, as enshrined by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A19, timed to coincide with the historic dates of Black August, is continuing this focus on slavery as a central theme.

And yet it must be noted that, just as the abolitionist movement of the previous centuries illustrated, slavery is just one example—albeit an extreme one—of what happens when a population is degraded by discrimination to the point of being dehumanized. Removing the prison slavery cause from the US Constitution is a major step in re-humanizing prisoners in order to undo the damage of mass incarceration policies which have torn so many communities apart.

In addition to amending the 13th, there are other significant concrete steps that can be taken towards re-humanizing the prisoner population. One major example that is relevant to eco-activist folks is recognizing prisoners in the environmental permitting process. After three years of our organizing, the EPA has announced that they will finally step up in response to our demand that they acknowledge environmental racism and injustice in the prison industrial complex, adding prison sites to their EJSCREEN tool so that environmental reviews can include prison populations in their official reports.

This new stance by the EPA could be an important shift for prisoners if it is used effectively, and it’s a very tangible entry point for environmental organizers to step further into the fray of the prison/ecology intersection.

Ironically, two days after A19 the EPA will be hosting a webinar on EJSCREEN updates, including the listing of prisons. Its free and open to all. Jump on it, August 21 at 3pm ET, to learn about using the environmental review process to support prisoners and even stop prisons (as we have been doing to defeat the Letcher County federal prison plan for the last three years!)