The Toxic Prisons Mapping Project, Beta, is a participatory research initiative to map the environmental hazards that prisons, jails, and detention centers face from extreme heat, air pollution, flooding, wildfires and more. The project also includes audio and written narratives from people who have been directly impacted by incarceration. We hope this mapping tool will be used to support organizing and policy change aimed at decreasing the scope of the prison system which is physically, socially, and psychologically toxic to our communities. While the tool works on mobile, for the best viewing experience, please use a computer. Visit the Contact page to get notified about future trainings and tutorials.
I remember a time when I was there in 2004. So I was locked in the cell and the water came out. The water was coming out of the sink, it was brownish, and it was so horrible that you couldn't even use it, so we were stuck in a cell with no water. So I could just say I have had firsthand experience with those types of bad conditions.
— Amanda Stateville Correctional Center (Joliet, Illinois)
I mean, I was in Waseca in Minnesota before and they had no air conditioner. So you were in those conditions where it was hot... So you get those kind of places where it's extremely hot in the summertime. You got conditions where it's 100 degrees inside, you're trying to use a little fan.
I know that we had issues with black mold at Coleman and at Tallahassee. In fact, I was housed in a unit that had been condemned for black mold and for a roof leak, which actually probably is what caused the black mold. I was, in that particular unit, closed up without being able to leave that unit for nine months during COVID.
— Julia FCI Tallahassee Detention Center (Tallahassee, Florida)
