The first time Adam Mahoney walked into a prison, he was 20 years old. While participating in the Stateville Correctional Center's first writing workshops, he walked by sign after sign reading the words “toxic” and “danger.”
In his story for Peace & Riot, Mahoney and B. Preston Lyles, lead organizer for the Toxic Prisons Campaign, explore why the contamination rampant in so many prisons is no accident.
“It became clear to me that the prison and the industrial sprawl around it are products of the same calculus: extract what's deemed useful, discard what isn't, and find the cheapest possible place to hide the remainder,” writes Mahoney.
“This calculus has roots in the plantation economy, in convict leasing after the Civil War, in redlining and urban renewal, and in every era of American history when Black and brown communities were deemed expendable.”
One-third of all state and federal prisons in this country sit within three miles of a federal Superfund site.
Lyles is unambiguous about the direction we must head. He wants more than prison reform.
“As long as Black bodies are illegitimately chained, as long as Black bodies are caged, then the hope of healthy environments—that hope is impossible,” he says. “It’s about mustering the courage to have a major reassessment—to reckon with our racial history, and build a movement rooted in the awareness of the dignity and humanity of us all.”
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Worth Revisiting
Reframing Resistance
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