CRM 285 Test 2

what is the basics of Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner” by Jewell Bohlinger

• Solitary confinement causes serious harm to physical and mental health, including anxiety, depression, paranoia, sleep disturbances, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

• The Nature Imagery in Prisons Project (NIPP) was introduced to help reduce the psychological effects of isolation by providing prisoners with access to images and sounds of nature.

what are blue rooms

The videos projected in what inmates called the "blue room" included imagery of forests, beaches, and Earth viewed from space.

why is the blue room used Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner” by Jewell Bohlinger

• Prisoners in solitary confinement could voluntarily exchange their recreational time for a session in the Blue Room.

• Key argument: The Blue Room may provide temporary relief, but it does not address the underlying harms caused by solitary confinement or replace adequate mental health care.

what is carceral humanism and greenwashing in Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner” by Jewell Bohlinger

• Carceral humanism: prison reforms that use a humanitarian approach without questioning the system of incarceration itself

• like the sustainable prisons program jobs

• These initiatives are used to make prisons more progressive However, they may leave the underlying problems of imprisonment, including isolation, strict control, and limited access to resources, unchanged.

what is the politics of sustainable prisons in Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner” by Jewell Bohlinger

• The Sustainability in Prisons Project began in Washington in 2003, Its objectives include conserving water and energy, reducing waste, providing environmental education, and creating vocational opportunities.

• Sustainability in prisons programs (SPP)

  • Gardening

  • Composting

  • Beekeeping

  • Plant and species conservation

  • Waste sorting, recycling, water and energy conservation, green purchasing

  • Reclaim, repurpose and restore, and donate programs

  • Environmental studies and workshop curricula and programs

what is the positives and negative in sustainable programs in Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner” by Jewell Bohlinger

• Sustainability programs can operate as tools of behavioural management and institutional control.

• Some deliberately waste resources, leave water running, take excess food, or leave windows open in winter to increase prison operating costs.

• Green vocational programs offer opportunities in areas such as plant cultivation, recycling, gardening, and ecological restoration.  However, prisoners question whether these jobs provide skills that are useful in the outside labour market.

what are sustainable prisons

correctional facilities that integrate environmental stewardship, resource efficiency, and green-collar vocational training while balancing broader penal reform and humane conditions

what is neoliberalism

• What is neoliberalism: Neoliberalism is a political and economic philosophy that argues societies and economies work best when market competition is free from heavy government control

how does neo liberalism relate to sustainable prisons

• Neoliberal context and prison sustainability

  • Eco-austerity model:encouraging prisoners to be environmentally responsible through their individual actions, while also helping the prison reduce its costs

  • Appeals to both sides of American political spectrum

  • The SPP presents individual environmental responsibility and austerity as forms of rehabilitation

  • Prisons encourage prisoners to become “green” through individual practices while prisons themselves remain sites of environmental harm and injustice

what is the green prisoner

• The green prisoner

  • Eco-austerity: “Green” behaviour reduces both environmental impact and prison costs.

  • Prisoners are encouraged to take personal responsibility for sustainability.

  • The “carrot”: Sustainability programs offer benefits that can discourage resistance.

  • Prisoners who understand the economic logic can resist through wasteful behaviour.

  • Key contradiction: The prison tries to make prisoners responsible for reducing costs, while prisoners can use waste to resist the prison’s economic goals

basics of the Industrial livestock and ecological hoofprint by Weis

• Intro: The fast-changing place of animals in agricultural landscapes and diets

  • Agriculture is humanity's most fundamental ecological relationship — organizing photosynthesis and managing (usually reducing) plant and animal diversity across landscapes.

  • Agriculture = an interwoven set of social, ecological, and inter-species relations.

  • A "heavy friction of distance" prevailed for most of agricultural history — moving things (especially perishables) far was hard, so food systems stayed relatively localized until recently.

  • Farming relied on limited external inputs; where soil health failed, long-term degradation triggered many civilizational crises.

in Industrial livestock and ecological hoofprint by Weis what is the biophysical contradiction with agriculture

The statement means that unlike manufacturing or tech, you cannot make a farm infinitely larger and expect it to keep getting cheaper or more efficient to run because nature imposes strict physical limits.

in Industrial livestock and ecological hoofprint by Weis: why does nature not allow a farm to be build in Ocean of monocultures

• Ocean of monocultures

  • Soil degradation: Caused by loss of intercrops and ground cover, machinery compaction/tillage, pesticides, and loss of soil organisms. Overridden mainly by heavy applications of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium fertilisers (energy-intensive to produce and transport).

  • Pest proliferation: Monocultures widen the definition of pests and reduce natural controls. Problems overridden with more inputs; agro-input consumption has outpaced yield gains over the past half-century.

  • Water demand: Reduced ground cover and soil diversity make soils drier, heightening irrigation needs — tied to major freshwater diversions and non-regenerating aquifer pumping.

in Industrial livestock and ecological hoofprint by Weis: why does nature not allow a farm to be build in Islands of concentrated animals

• Feed contradiction: Mechanisation and density cut labour costs but greatly raise feed costs, driving pressure to improve feed conversion rates.

• Innovations to boost conversion: Artificial insemination, specialised breeding, genetic modification, tighter confinement, temperature control, hormones, and lighting manipulation. This is why poultry is the biggest source of growth birds convert feed more efficiently than mammals.

• Animal suffering

• Disease and waste

• Transport: Spatially disaggregated assembly line animals move from breeding sites to factory farms/feedlots to slaughterhouses.

in Industrial livestock and ecological hoofprint by Weis: why does nature not allow a farm to be build in Burning useable nutrition

• Inefficiency

• Meatification: Livestock appropriate a massive share of arable land, driven by unequal effective demand and taste preferences rather than necessity

• Reverse protein factories: Concentrated animals reduce the protein that could have been available to humans if crops were eaten directly, magnifying the resource intensity of monocultures

what is Meatification

• Meatification: The shift from grain/plant based diets toward diets where meat is central.

what is meatifications effects

• Weis argues that rising meat consumption is shaped by economic and political policies, not simply personal choice.

• Grain is fed to animals rather than eaten directly by people = more resources are required to produce food.

• Environmental impacts: Increased meat production requires more land, pasture, and animal feed, contributing to deforestation/ other environmental impacts.

• Meat = status & progress: Meat consumption has historically been associated with wealth, Western identity, masculinity, and modernity.

• Colonial connection: Can reproduce colonial distinctions between supposedly “modern” meat eating societies and societies with more plant or grain based diets

negative effects of meatification

• ‘Whopper Virgins:’ The hamburger is presented as something new, modern, and desirable that supposedly isolated communities are missing.

• “Whopper Virgins” = advertising disguised as humanitarian aid

• Meat consumption contributes to food insecurity, yet the Whopper is presented as the solution

• Cultural assimilation: Adopting Western diets becomes linked to adopting Western norms

what are the loses due to animal agriculture

• 20-30% of all water is used for animal agriculture

• Animal agriculture drives deforestation, land degradation, pollution, and climate change

• Atmosphere: Livestock sector responsible for 51% of greenhouse gas emissions, coming from many different parts of animal agriculture

what are the negative impacts on humans due to animal agriculture

• Diet: Linked to “diseases of affluence” such as heart disease, certain cancers, and gout

• Environmental exposure: Toxins and pollution can disproportionately affect lower income and racialized communities

• Antibiotic resistance: Animal agriculture can contribute to the development of “superbugs”

• Zoonotic diseases: Diseases can spread between animals and humans, including through food and animal products

• Profit over workers: Government and agribusiness interests can prioritize profit and efficiency

• Often immigrant, racialized, low income, and criminalized/formerly incarcerated workers doing agriculture work

what are the basics of The bloody bad business by Neufeld

• The central argument: The report alleges that Canada's federal prison slaughterhouse at Joyceville Institution in Ontario exploited incarcerated workers, exposed prisoners and staff to safety risks, enabled illegal activities, and repeatedly breached institutional, regulatory and contractual requirements—all while operating through a partnership between the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) and a private meat company, Wallace Beef Inc.

what is a abattoir

• An abattoir is a slaughterhouse where animals are killed and processed for meat.

what is the arrangement between CSC and Wallace Beef in The bloody bad business by Neufeld

• The reports state how prisoners who worked for abattoir made $3/hr

• Federal prisoners were not legally classified as employees and could not freely quit their assigned jobs, although they could seek transfers.

• The maximum standard full-time prison-work rate cited was $6.90 per day for eight hours, while abattoir work had a special rate of $3 per hour.

what are all the concerns within Joyceville in The bloody bad business by Neufeld

• Human rights violations

  • Associating underpaid prison labour with the private sector

  • ‘Inmates cannot quit a job’

• Legal violation

  • Money laundering and drug related activity’

  • Tobacco smuggling

• Institutional violation

  • Rushing psychological assessments to “meet financial targets”

  • Discontinuing psychological assessments “due to liability concerns”

• Regulatory violations

  • Questionable inspection practices

  • Non-compliance with Federal Wastewater and Halocarbon Regulations

  • Improper disposal of blood

  • Operating without a contract

• Contractual violations

  • Legacy of contract breaches and repeated infractions

  • Undue expense and stress on the institution

  • CSC has attempted to terminate contract since at least 1997

  • “It’s Wallace Beef or bust”

• Ethical violations

  • Dangerous work, psychological impacts, and emotional desensitization

Who benefits from the operation in The bloody bad business by Neufeld

• Wallace Beef: The private operator benefited from access to a federally owned facility and inexpensive prison labour.

• Livestock farmers: The abattoir provided a slaughter and processing service to farms in the surrounding region.

• Downstream businesses: Animal by-products, including hides and other remains, were sent for further processing. The report identifies a local business that used some by-products in mink farming and raw pet food production

history of the Joyceville insituation abattoir in Carceral Carcasses: The Ecological Hoofprint of Deadstock in Canada’s Prison Farms and Abattoir by Calvin Neufeld & Kelly Struthers Montford

• Joyceville Penitentiary opened in December 1959; one of primary functions was to produce beef for federal penitentiaries.

• By 1970s, prison farms and abattoirs already combining food production, institutional cost-saving, and compulsory prison labour

• In 1995, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) partnered with the private company Wallace Beef through CORCAN.

• The partnership allowed Wallace Beef to operate a commercial slaughterhouse using low-paid incarcerated workers.

what is the ecological hoof print relating to animal agriculture in Carceral Carcasses: The Ecological Hoofprint of Deadstock in Canada’s Prison Farms and Abattoir by Calvin Neufeld & Kelly Struthers Montford

• Tony Weis identifies six areas of harm with environmental and social harms related to animal agriculture

  • Water pollution and consumption.

  • Land degradation.

  • Atmospheric pollution.

  • Public health risks.

  • Degradation of labour.

  • Harmful interspecies relationships.

what is dead stock

• Deadstock: refers to animals who don’t enter the slaughterhouse and also the remains of an animal body processed at the slaughterhouse

what is deading life

• Deading life: Desubjectification of animals being numbered and treated as machinery to create future product

what are prisons as waste sites

• Using prisoners for low-Cost labour, numbering practices; perspective of less than human = social ‘waste’

• Waste creation intersects with the prison + abattoir

  • Cause prisoners to be sick due to conditions

• Out of side out of mind type mentality 

• prisoners are not considered imployees due to their incarceration status so Pay levels max out at $6.90; staying the same since 1981

what happening in the Ontario prisons - run dairy farm raises ethical concerns about labor video

• The regional manager supports this idea of prisoners working in the dairy farm, as it seems to the company the prisoners are getting experience out of it

• Milk is being sold commercially, which is not right as prisons are not allowed to sell products that prisoners made commercially

what is the Background of st louis, michigan in Tombstone Towns and Toxic Prisons: Prison Ecology and the Necessity of an Anti‑prison Environmental Movement by Bradshaw

• The town had a population of 10,669 in 2010, with more than 3,500 people incarcerated in local correctional facilities.

• From 1936 to 1978, the Michigan Chemical Corporation (later Velsicol Chemical Corporation) manufactured over 200 chemicals, including DDT and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs).

• Toxic chemical waste was dumped into the Pine River, causing extensive environmental contamination.

• In 1982, Velsicol agreed to pay $38.5 million in a settlement but was released from liability beyond the plant site.

what are the Enviormental injustice in the st louis prison in Tombstone Towns and Toxic Prisons: Prison Ecology and the Necessity of an Anti‑prison Environmental Movement by Bradshaw

• Prison populations were disproportionately made up of people from racial minority groups compared with Michigan's overall population.

• Prisoners were exposed to the contaminated municipal water supply and had little choice but to continue drinking it.

• Prison officials relied on assessments from state and federal environmental authorities to justify continuing the use of the water.

what are the failures of the Enviormental polices and regulation in Tombstone Towns and Toxic Prisons: Prison Ecology and the Necessity of an Anti‑prison Environmental Movement by Bradshaw

• The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) new order introduced in 1994, aimed to address environmental injustice affecting low-income communities and communities of colour.

• However, prisoners were largely excluded from environmental justice policies and decision-making processes.

• Environmental assessments often relied on standardised statements rather than meaningful investigations of potential harm.

what is green crim and prison ecology in Tombstone Towns and Toxic Prisons: Prison Ecology and the Necessity of an Anti‑prison Environmental Movement by Bradshaw

• Green criminology examines environmental harm, environmental crimes and the unequal distribution of environmental risks.

• Prison ecology explores the relationship between prisons, environmental degradation and environmental injustice.

in Conservation Projects in Prison: The Case for Engaging Incarcerated Populations in Conservation and Science by Kaye, thomas what are the case study summary with Sagebrush and Greater Sage-Grouse

• Sagebrush and Greater Sage-Grouse

  • Greater sage-grouse populations have declined because of habitat destruction and fragmentation.

  • Wildfires destroy sagebrush, which provides essential food and shelter for the birds.

  • Inmates at Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon grow native Wyoming big sagebrush for habitat restoration.

  • Scientists train inmates in horticulture and plant propagation.

  • The facility produces at least 10,000 plants annually, with a capacity of up to 80,000.

  • Plants are matched to suitable restoration sites according to their seed origins and local environmental conditions.

  • The project supports sage-grouse habitat recovery while providing inmates with practical skills.

in Conservation Projects in Prison: The Case for Engaging Incarcerated Populations in Conservation and Science by Kaye, thomas what are the case study summary with Violets for Oregon Silverspot Butterflies

• The Oregon silverspot butterfly has declined significantly and is listed as threatened.

• Its survival depends partly on the availability of early blue violets, which provide food for its larvae.

• Inmates at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and Oak Creek Correctional Facility grow these native violets.

• The project is a partnership involving correctional facilities, conservation scientists, the Oregon Zoo, and other organisations.

• Up to 60,000 violet plants are produced annually.

• The plants are used in habitat restoration and to feed butterfly larvae raised in captivity.

• The program supports butterfly conservation and provides horticultural training.

in Conservation Projects in Prison: The Case for Engaging Incarcerated Populations in Conservation and Science by Kaye, thomas what are the case study summary with Oregon Spotted Frogs

• Oregon Spotted Frogs

  • The Oregon spotted frog has disappeared from at least 78% of its historical range.

  • Major threats include habitat loss, invasive plants, and predation by non-native bullfrogs.

  • In 2009, the SPP began a five-year pilot program to raise Oregon spotted frogs at Cedar Creek Corrections Center.

  • Between 2009 and 2012, more than 550 frogs were raised and released.

  • Average egg-to-adult survival exceeded 77%.

  • Inmates received training in herpetology and assisted with scientific research.

  • Research included studies on predator avoidance, fungal disease, and frog growth.

  • The program demonstrated that prison facilities could successfully support endangered species recovery.

in Conservation Projects in Prison: The Case for Engaging Incarcerated Populations in Conservation and Science by Kaye, thomas what are the case study summary with Taylor’s Checkerspot Butterflies

• Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly is an endangered species threatened by the loss of prairie habitats.

• A new butterfly-rearing facility was established at Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Washington in 2011.

• The project involved scientists, prison staff, students, and conservation organisations.

• More than 4,000 butterflies were raised and released during 2012–2013.

• Survival during captive rearing exceeded 95%.

• Inmates assisted with research into butterfly egg-laying preferences and host plants.

• Research findings helped scientists better understand the butterfly’s habitat requirements and improve restoration strategies.

• Inmates also gained scientific knowledge and research experience.

in Conservation Projects in Prison: The Case for Engaging Incarcerated Populations in Conservation and Science by Kaye, thomas what are the case study summary with Washington Conservation Nurseries

• Prairie-oak ecosystems in the Puget lowlands have declined because of development and fire suppression.

• The SPP established native plant nurseries in Washington correctional facilities.

• Inmates perform tasks such as:

  • Sowing seeds and watering plants.

  • Controlling pests and weeds.

  • Collecting and recording data.

  • Producing native plants for restoration projects.

• Participants receive training in plant cultivation, seed ecology, pest management, and fire ecology.

• Between 2009 and 2013, the nurseries produced nearly one million native plant plugs representing 63 species.

• Inmate participation more than tripled the annual supply of plants available for restoration in the Puget lowlands.

• Inmates also contributed to research on rare plant propagation and seed germination

what is prisons as lulus

• Prisons as LULUs

  • Locally undesirable land uses (LULUs)

  • ”land uses that are perceived as risky when conducted near the spaces where people live, work, or play” (mining, extractive industries, waste incineration, landfills).

  • Environmental racism and locations of LULUs

  • Layering of LULUs

    • Example: Angola–former plantation turned prison

      • beef, hand cultivated crops, 4-20 cents/hr

what are Superfund sites

• A Superfund site designation is meant to channel Congressional resources (in the form of a trust fund) towards the long-Term clean-up of locations contaminated with hazardous substances.

• Velsicol Chemical Corporation

• ⅓ of population in St Louis is incarcerated.

• Dumping more than 200 chemicals for 42 years

what are the impacts of Superfund sites + the 3 toxic chemicals

• Pine river – fish

• Dead robins, european starlings, bluebird

• DDt, PPBs, p-CBSA

  • Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is an insecticide banned in some but not all jurisdictions.

  • Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) are chemicals added to plastics as flame retardants.

  • Para-Chlorobenzenesulfonic acid (p-CBSA) is a by-product of DDT production

• Cancers, reproductive issues, stomach issues, headaches, lethargy and hyperthyroidism

• Courts cruel and unusual; maximally safe environment

what are the materials being mined

• Uranium

  • Unregulated tailings ponds, spills, contamination, atmospheric uranium emissions

  • All prisons located within few miles of former Mill

  • Impacts on surrounding Navajo nation

• Coal

  • Coal and incarceration are main economic drivers

  • Coal ash → dozen heavy metals, including mercury, lead, and arsenic (lung problems)

• Arsenic

  • Water supplies

  • Prisoners disproportionately exposed

    • “excess burden of disease”

what is the YIMBY prison building

• Economically depressed areas targeted for prison building

• 1990s saw one new prison/two weeks in the US

• Rural, socially isolated communities without extractive economies

• Intersection of poverty and racialization

what is the The prison’s ecological spillover effects

• EPA: prisons are a systematic polluter

• Sewage, wastewater, diesel dumped into waterways; prison laundries

• Rivers contaminated by “ammonia, fecal coliform, viruses, parasites”; wetlands contaminated, as are ditches, farmlands, etc.; phosphates & algae blooms

what is Another prison paradox: conservation

• Sixth Extinction:

  • Extinctions 1,000 to 10,000x the natural rate

  • 800 to 10,000 years for these losses v. 100 years

• Bohlinger: “Sustainable prison” has been politically successful, but is impossible

• Distracts from colonial, racist, and gendered violence of the prison, while justifying prison expansion

• “Green prison”; “Gender responsive”; “Indigenizing the prison”

what is the SPP conservation programs

• SPP c. 2003 in partnership with Evergreen College

• Species loss outpaces responses, but more can be done

• Prisoners as underutilized ‘resource’ in conservation

• Threatened or endangered animal species 

• Partnerships with other gov't depts, zoos, etc

What is unacknowledged about the conservation prisons claim

• The role of the prison in driving climate change and extinctions

• More financial, psychological, and social investments in the prison

• Responsive rather than preventative approach

• Most eco-friendly approach to climate change and extinctions is decarceration

why prisons for this project

• captive population

• Produces good feelings toward the prison

• Conservation underfunded and deprioritized while prison is not

• Sustainability within neoliberal context