“To understand why environmental justice matters, one need only remember that the movement fighting environmental racism is the result of what happens when people fear that their lives and health are being disproportionately put at risk because of the color of their skin or the sound of their accent.” (Mohai 2009)
The united states incarcerated population has had an increase of 500 percent to over 2.2 million people in jail and prison. This shift has had a disproportionate impact on black, and latino young men and women. Some environmental scholars have focused on LULUs ( locally undesirable land use) to illustrate a correctional facility and their framework. Their research focuses on industries that are considered “traditionally” problematic. They have started to see connections between environmental injustices and prisons. Studies have found that U.S LULUs are located in primarily minority, poor neighborhoods and they are linked to deliberate and institutionalized practices which aims at vulnerable populations and practices of environmental racism. Another factor of environmental racism is prison placement. One environmental justice scholar’s work considers the “rural ghettos” are often where prisons are located because community leaders see the prison industry as a way to manage a stigmatized identity. Racial stereotyping, racial profiling, and greater amounts of police in communities of color create a higher percentage of people who cycle in and out of prisons and jails. Greater rates of poverty lead to survival crimes. Prisons and jails show environmental racism through where they are located and who they are targeting.
In In 1985, the California Governor George Deukmejian proposed to construct a prison in the predominantly latino community of East LA, Gutiérrez, Aurora Castillo, and other Mexicana/Chicana activists decided to start a social and environmental justice group called Mothers of East Los Angeles/ MAdres del Este de Los Angeles. Activists were outraged about this plan that Governor Deukmejian had and made efforts to oppose the prison. The threats the community faced was an oil pipeline that would run through areas with public schools,and a hazardous waste incinerator that would have burned 125,000 pounds of hazardous substances each day. They protested and eventually the plan was put to a halt. Although this prison was not built it shows environmental racism by the location that the prison was supposed to be build on, and who it would affect.