Climate Justice in Incarceration (ft. UCLA Heat Lab)

[Music] Hi everybody welcome to the Heapshipian podcast where diverse perspectives and healthcare collide. Today we have the UACLA heat lab with us to discuss climate justice and incarceration. My name is Varaj, I am the co-director of Educational Outreach and I have my two lovely co-directors of CEI with me. My name is Sassam and I'm the director of the Community Aggrating Clinician and we're really excited to have this podcast and talk about how heat can negatively impact people, specifically in the correctional facility. Yeah and my name is Mahi and the co-director of Community Equity and Inclusion as well and we're really excited to be here and be appearing on this podcast today because a lot of our work for health advocacy is relevant to today's podcast topic. Hi so we're the undergraduate researchers at the UACLA heat lab under the direction of Dr. Varaj Venkat we actually studied thermal inequality which is the unequal distribution and experience of heat due to the build environment through an interdisciplinary approach. Hi my name is Carmen, my name is Natisha, my name is Elise and I'm Stephanie. So the heat lab has a lot of teams but all of us here are members of the carceral heat team which is centered around the issue of heat and incarceration. We study how the how heat and climate change affects incarcerated populations and we also find solutions through an abolitionist framework. Awesome. Thank you guys. So to start us off could you explain what got you all interested in working specifically in heat regarding incarceration? What's research are you guys doing currently and what have you seen so far in your time at the heat lab? So well all people don't know is that he is actually a silent killer. Everyone experiences heat but it's not something that is at like the forefront of everyone's mind. In reality he comes in different forms and can both directly and indirectly lead to extreme illness or even death. So for example prescribed medications can impact your body's ability to sweat or circulate blood properly. Other outside factors include like a lack of shade and given working for long periods of time that places like an excessive stress on the heart and the kidneys and so we realize that the causes and effects of heat are actually intertwined with other social issues. So we specifically want to look at the underserved and overlooked populations that most researchers wouldn't actually consider studying especially in terms of thermal justice. Setting aside thermal inequality the incarcerated population is generally ignored overall because of harsh stereotypes. Yeah so just to add on to a natisha said a lot of people justify weaponized heat exposure as a valid form of punishment as they believe that the incarcerated population deserves this kind of treatment and extreme conditions because of the kind or because of their actions or the crimes that they committed but reframing the issue we kind of hope to change the narrative by looking at the carceral system not only from a different thermal perspective but also from an abolitionist one. And could you guys expand on what you mean by the abolitionist perspective? In terms of the abolition abolitionist perspective we believe that different alternatives that people might propose to getting rid of the heat in prisons for example like creating installing HVAC systems and installing fans and things like that aren't actually going to resolve the actual root cause of the car incarcerated population and he related illnesses in the population that the root cause is the carceral system itself and so we think that or we believe that by abolishing the carceral system we are able to truly get rid of heat and how it disproportionately impacts incarcerated people specifically people of color low-income socioeconomic backgrounds those who are actually in correct socioeconomically intertwined into the carceral system. That sounds great and I think that's a really good way to look at the big picture because I feel like a lot of times in scientists people get caught up on like individual solutions or let's address this individual problem by itself so the fact that you guys are looking more widely instead of just the topic of heat but more widely like how does politics how does being from a low-income how does being a person of color how does all of this affect whether or not you're impacted by heat and whether or not you're impacted by a part of incarceration and both I think is a really great way of just expanding the whole issue. Yeah and well that was like wonderful to learn about and I'm at some point you guys mentioned that like heatless physiologically negatively affects the human body and I was wondering if you could expand on that and like how I contribute to becoming like a serious public health issue. So there's a lot of different ways that the body is actually impacted by heat so like I said before like if somebody is taking prescribed medications that can contribute to their core body temperature to increase because that impacts their ability to self-regulate. For example like there might be some fast-so-construction that yeah I was gonna add sorry to when a t-shirt said and a prime example of this is older adults in prisons. A lot of them have a higher chance of chronic conditions because on various medications and these medications actually affect whether or not they can thermoregulate properly and then this can further impact their ability to cool down or they can have involuntary increased body temperatures and then this further makes them vulnerable to extreme heat especially like how we're talking about right now like in prisons as these facilities are you know very old they're run down and then a lot of them lack a lot of essential weight in. Yeah and so to kind of add on to that a lot of incarcerated lip workers they tend to work either indoors in hot human spaces or they work outside also in hot human spaces and so they are often working for a long period of time and that can place an excessive stress on the heart and the kidneys and those can lead to chronic diseases or conditions and even heat stroke if not treated properly. And so I just wanted to take the question a little bit further and ask you guys have you noticed any disparities in health related or heat related education within these communities right like I feel like I see HC what one thing we see often is especially in lower income communities is when it comes to health is the fact that a lot of issues arise because people in lower income communities or especially immigrants or people that people have colored their cultures or whatever teach them that maybe working in heat is a good thing maybe it's like maybe it doesn't cause issues or maybe they just simply don't know that working in heat for a long periods of time can be bad for you or just other general health related things they just don't necessarily know this is something that could cause chronic effect right so at the heat lab what have you guys noticed is like a disparity in education when it comes to heat. The fun thing that we noticed was that like you said a lot of times different cultures tend to educate people on different things especially immigrant culture a lot of immigrants say tends to be kind of working outside as laborers are they tends to place this idea of strength comes first type of mentality where they have to push themselves to the limit whether it's for their family for themselves for their dignity whatever it may be so we noticed that there's a lot of disparity within between cultures but there's also a lot of disparity between youth and like kind of the elderly as well specifically for like incarcerated populations I believe that the youth is fortunately becoming more educated on topics such as he and especially if we're talking kind of just about overstraining yourself and making sure that you are pushing yourself to the limit to the plant failure that there's definitely a disparity between that and older populations who are never raised to think that way or trained to think of the mindset that you deserve what you put in or you reap what yourself I can see that and I think definitely in my time working with the lower communities I've also seen that this big disparity between younger the population in the lower community communities just having better actively think especially because they're on social media especially because they understand how to use the internet better while older people just they tend to rely on what the young people tell them and so especially if they don't get that education from the younger people then they're kind of stuck with like not knowing exactly where they go right so next question is so many prison in California as you guys have been saying are all the facilities and they have very limited ventilation what risks does that create for people living inside especially when it comes to labor like prison is kind of been as you guys are talking about the carceral system has kind of been structured in a way to the point where like it's being tracked for labor and so in the context of labor specifically like what was it supposed for incarcerated people these the limited ventilation so starts that looking for edit from an infrastructural standpoint a lot of these older facilities are quite run down and lack of maintenance especially in their age back systems so oftentimes the solution to this lack of AC is installation of fans but this generally just is only blowing hot air back already into the already hot humid environment so to the extent to where indoor space can become even hotter than outdoors yeah and also just like in general a lot of these incarcerated individuals they often lack access to cooling supplies given like in their own cells that's something that we are actually looking for into our research paper so for example prisoners have to go purchase their own fans a cooling towel oftentimes taking weeks of labor to produce them the funds for these supplies so a lot of these necessities needed to stay cool aren't provided for free so regardless most of the solutions in mind that we currently are thinking of or like the carceral systems are thinking of just include installation of AC systems really fail to address the recalls of heat-related illness and deaths in prison which you know it just lands back to the whole carceral system being like that itself yeah for sure I think that's why it's really important for us to be discussing this and we'll talk about this more as we continue our conversation but the bill that we're both advocating for a B1424 it's really addressing addressing a lot of those ventilation systems and coming to the root of that and saying hey what we have isn't enough and we kind of want to go further with that install good ventilation systems and use like a whole approach kind of to address the problem for many different standpoints and really make sure that we're minimizing heat risk so we've discussed a lot about how heat risk is bad of course at this point how incarcerated individuals may be at a higher risk of heat risk so to build on that would you all say that kind of extreme heat affects people in prison differently than there would be people in the general population and if you all know of any real life examples where he has harmed incarcerated people and that's kind of to say are there any inequities there that we should all be aware of a big difference between the general population and like the incarcerated population is that if it's hot and you're not incarcerated you could just go somewhere cooler a lot of the time if you have a car and you're able to go to a cooling center versus if you're incarcerated you're just stuck in the hot prison which is also like a lot of times like we said hotter than outside so there's kind of no escaping it and you also like can't afford to buy fans and cooling towels like people who aren't incarcerated can just because it's so expensive in the commissary yeah I know totally agree so like what do you think like what kind of like structural changes or like environmental protections do you think is like most important to like reducing like heat related harm and like these close facilities like prisons essentially well like we said before we want to view this from an abolitionist perspective so these prisons should not be existing at all it's we believe that it's a moral for these prisons and these carceral systems to exist in the first place but if we want to provide some form of temporary relief obviously it's important that we install kind of age-back systems that being AC systems certain forms of cooling and like we said in our research paper we found that there are a lot of times where prisoners are incarcerated workers don't have given access to cooling items and basic necessities or in the sense that they have to work several weeks in order to just simply obtain or be able to purchase a cooling item or anything that can that they can use to keep cool but that shouldn't be the case at all so we believe that those cooling items that they're that they can buy should be given to them it shouldn't be something that they have to necessarily work for or push themselves to the limit for and so I'm gonna ask about the abolitionist being again just because I'm really fascinated by the fact that like you know a very science-focused level the heat lab is you know it has such big intersection with politics and abolition so when you say that you believe these carceral systems exist do you believe the carceral systems should be set up in such a way to extract these prisons for their labor or do you believe that like incarceration as a whole is just unjust or is it somewhere in middle you know correct me if I'm wrong I just wanted to give more perspective on this so for us we don't believe that the carceral system should exist at all okay it shouldn't be instilled okay and then I want to jump in on that as well also what we're talking about the door advocating for even just health advocacy in general what do you say is the value and approaches that work within the system and like install each practice systems like you said cooling measures workplace standards reports to the government things like that where does that lie in your opinion in the value of health advocacy even if you don't really abolish the system kind of like your and things in the long run so recently there's been a standard for prisons where people who work at the prisons are supposed to take the temperatures and monitor that and while in theory it's a great idea the issue is that it simply is not enforced like people can just forget to take the temperature and there's no action taken against them like so like there's no repercussion if you don't take the temperature and don't do that job but like legally you're supposed to do and also just like oftentimes even if they are taking the temperatures it'll be above the 89-degree Fahrenheit threshold that the temperature is supposed to be in prison and they're just like oh oh well that's how it is so even though in theory like that motion is great to have to take temperatures it really doesn't actually do anything to improve the situation so these individual fixes bills and research can only take you so far but the whole abolition of the system is the only thing that can you know kind of fix the whole thing yeah exactly it kind of drills into like the root cause of what we are studying which is like the relationship between he and how it impacts the carceral population so instead of incarceration I'm assuming I'm thinking are you guys thinking more towards rehabilitation instead of incarceration just like if you guys want to talk about your ideas on that yeah so correct so the prison abolitionist movement in general it's the goal is to mainly seek to reduce and eliminate prisons and instead reinforce that or change that instead to a system so we have the rehabilitation and education so it's not as focused on just like punishment you know because that's a lot of how like recidivism and all that plays into part two I think that's a really interesting idea kind of like you guys are getting at I think a lot of people's first thought and this matter would be the system is broken and we need to change it so far with our goals but I think what you guys are saying is the system is working exactly as intended and we need to build a new system which I think is a really cool way to think about it really gets at the root of the issue and I think also I like the idea here that especially like you can't attract anyone for their labor especially like in a system that even if the system is broken you can't attract anyone for the labor from a broken system right like that just can't be allowed it has to be a complete new system that's working towards that's not broken that we like if you're going to hold somebody and divide them at their rights you have to make sure that they're getting whatever rehabilitation they can and I like that idea more definitely so outside of incarceration how do you guys think your research with incarcerated individuals can be applied to a different context so yeah I'll tell you guys answer that so one thing that we did notice in terms of how he impacts the incarcerated population is kind of like from a socio-economic standpoint so for example a lot of people might think that the things that don't happen or that happen within prison walls are completely different from what happens outside and reality that that's not not always necessarily the case so for example in like the general population he impacts both general and in incarcerated populations in the same way in the sense that people of color and those of lower socioeconomic status are always negatively impacted and disproportionately impacted so for example in the general population you see like anti-homeless urban infrastructure that like weaponizes heat against the homeless population kind of medication use amongst the elderly that increases their sustainability to heat urban heat islands which for those who don't know is what occurs when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than nearby rural areas those are sectioned off in certain districts so certain districts that especially those of lower income people they don't have that urban landscape like lush green architecture architecture green spaces that are needed to take away that heat and then said it's just filled with concrete and black tar for example and on top of that people who live in lower income houses might not have like HVAC systems in their homes or even in their schools so they don't have the ability to kind of escape the heat even if they try so this really plays a role into how incarcerated populations are affected because it they it also targets people of color and those who come from lower income class lower income backgrounds and kind of just the carceral system as a whole so for example treatment in the carceral system those who are rich are often they tend to receive more benefits than those who don't really have any money to kind of use as a leeway or as an incentive for to be treated more fairly compared to those of lower background awesome and I especially find interesting that you're bringing up with the intersection between urban planning and heat to because honestly it sounds like you know you don't necessarily need to just like be incarcerated for them to kind of like attack you with this heat right like the way the city is planned and honestly turn it into like a heat prison it went and sorry I totally agree with you I like how you bought out the point of a of a heat prison yeah so we've already gotten up this of it like why prison specific we may tend to cause more heat risks as opposed to just in general but to expand on that I guess not just specifically what's in prisons but in any kind of environment what kind of environment would tend to trap here or worse than it's effects according to knowledge so like we kind of touched about green spaces play a lot into heat just you know plants will just naturally cool an area through transpiration but another one that we haven't talked about is concrete and dark materials which often are what prisons are made out of those have low albedo which just means that they observe that they absorb more sunlight they don't reflect the sunlight so obviously that makes them hotter yeah for sure I think that's really a been causing like double trouble in prisons almost because we have the added effect of you know maybe not being surrounded by a lot of plants or greenery a lot of the time which is eliminating a good thing and then you're also adding a bad thing by having that lower albedo so that's a really good plan oh yeah so like after like a lot of the discussion we had about like how it's like this advantage so people are present facility using like what kind of like steps can you take to address the uneven impacts like of like heat like a cross-loss angel specifically yeah so we can actually take this to the polls and make this a concern more on a systemic level not just for incarcerated folks but for the community of Los Angeles as well we know that Los Angeles is a very diverse community and it consists of different groups with different economic socio-economic backgrounds and so you know one key thing would be implementing green spaces in marginalized communities as we know that marginalized communities lack a lot of green spaces they lack a lot of trees and for example trees are important in the sense where they provide shade and this shade can be used as a cooling space so these are just little things that can be implemented in these communities yeah and to kind of add on to that we have to be wary with how we take steps towards kind of deflecting heat and trying to get to more cooler spaces because obviously everything has a cause and effect so we just have to understand everything from a holistic perspective so like for example like we could implement green spaces we could implement all these things that could kind of get rid of these urban heat islands for example however a lot of the times when people do when people do create these green spaces that increases kind of like the tax money the taxpayer money and the rent and the the costs of living in those given spaces because their team does more nice or they're deemed as more kind of like cleanly you know and they're more desired by home by larger richer home owners so a lot of the times people who should have access to those green spaces are often kicked out because they can't afford the rent they can't afford the housing prices they can't afford the inflation that comes with those green spaces so we just need to be understanding with how even though we try to take direct impacts on reducing heat how those impact other people and how the people that we might be trying to help who are disproportionately affected by heat may might not be helped at all yeah so in that sense you would have to kind of see this more from an equity standpoint and provide those resources needed to them so that they can still you know like connotation said not be removed from these neighborhoods because they can't afford it so with the whole conversation about kind of using neighborhoods in space as ways to kind of trap people in heat I want to ask this one this seems like a very urban centered topic right which I know the heat life focus is mainly in Los Angeles but outside of urban areas like in rural areas like have you guys know like does your research like tell you anything about like how does he affect people in rural areas or just outside of the city in general and if you guys want a car soul team if you want to talk about specifically in cars like incarceration go for it yeah so in terms of cars incarcerated people a lot of times prisons are located in deserts or specifically areas that are not super populated so even though we do we don't have that urban heat island effect that we've been talking about before there's still a lot of ways that he can directly impact and directly affect these prisons from an external like through external factors so like at least said before with the concrete and the materials of using like black tar and concrete materials to build these prisons as well as metal bars steel bars anything that essentially deflects heat within those spaces that generates a lot of that indoor hot humid space that we often see in these prisons not to mention that they are quite literally located in deserts and secluded areas because a lot of times people obviously don't or those who are designing prisons don't want to be placing these prisons in places of like rural areas and rural communities things like that where it can be considered as like unsafe so yeah a lot of times the places that incarcerated populations are placed in they can extremely they can be directly impacted by just the outside of our men alone and I think it's so I think it's important that you mention that there are in deserts especially because from what we've seen at least what we worked with the HCB we've also seen that overall areas especially again desert areas and stuff like that just healthcare is harder to access in general right and so especially even if so as you're saying like the heat builds up in these prisons if health care is acquired as a result of these heat you know that's also just going to be harder to access you might get lower quality healthcare and so I think you know in terms of the heat building up in incarceration just a lack of healthcare also shows how the incarcerated just stuff kind of mistreats it's people yeah exactly kind of to add on to that a lot of times incarcerated populations they don't receive like the services that they should have as well so for example a lot of times they aren't taken seriously because you know once once a convicted felon that's how they are perceived right regardless of whatever type of crime that they committed and so a lot of times they people tend to kind of merge every single individual in the incarcerated population into this one most pot of they deserve what is happening to them when in reality that's not the case right so a lot of times things that are denied that they're denied access to like just basic healthcare basics check-ups things like that including stuff like heat where a lot of times illnesses are not directly or they cannot directly be traced back to heat or heat indirectly affects illness and even death a lot of times when people look into those type of deaths and like those sort of statistics it's not often viewed or he is not often viewed as a direct cause or a lot of the times the causes are unknown when in reality it's clearly the case where they just simply died in the prison due to heat exhaustion or due to heat stroke but there is no medical case to back it up because they have they're denied these services yeah I think that's a really interesting perspective I'm adding on to that and also going back to what we're just saying at CHC and specifically in CEI, I mean to some committee we a lot of the populations we work with are of course an urban setting around Los Angeles so a privilege that we really have with these communities is that there's often a lot of resources set up that we can direct certain individuals to for their needs for example if we're teaching about the importance of outdoor space we'll suggest some sort of community garden in the area where there's not really a lot of parks or anything so then when it comes to even as rural communities not prisons a lot of those resources of course are not as available just and because resources just aren't really directed to those places and then when we're looking into prisons these people obviously can't go out and venture to see what kind of resources are available to them it's a lot less independent almost they kind of have to rely on the idea that the outside world will provide these things to them and of course in a lot of cases they don't and it's really important to discuss those things and get to the real issue there. I wanted to ask one more question just about this whole like urban thing because I just really like find fascinating how much intersection there is between heat and just like being in an urban setting I know you guys work primarily Los Angeles but do you guys know like are there some cities that do it better than others like just when it comes to heat or is it kind of like this like I'm sure these issues exist in all cities but like have some cities taken any steps you guys know to like make this better for its residents that maybe you don't see that in Los Angeles. We haven't really looked outside of Los Angeles but there are cases where urban heat islands actually can be helpful for cities so for example it's definitely not in the US but in colder areas where winter is much more prominent and there's a lot more snow urban heat islands can actually be a place of warmth and it can provide kind of more regulation of temperature so it's kind of like an opposite effect of what we experience here in LA where it's excessive heat. In other places I believe like Sweden anywhere where it's snow is basically urban cities can relatively provide warmth and they can definitely help people cool down or people warm up instead of what we experience here. Yeah and I guess that's a good point because even though it may not be as relevant to a warmer city like Los Angeles just the US in general of course it's very diverse in its climates I think that is a relevant point for a lot of northern areas specifically where it snowes so then at least for us a lot of our goal here is to discuss some legislative advocacy in terms of how we can then make a change for a lot of the problems we've discussed so according to you all what kind of statewide standards or guidelines are needed to make prisons safer during extreme heat events. So one thing I want to bring up is the Calo Shell passing. Last year July 23rd on 2nd, 424 it's when it took effect so it's the heat illness prevention and indoor places of employment so originally carceral environments were going to be included in this ruling such that these the workplace that these indoor workplaces have to have cooling areas monitor workers taking breaks and looking for signs of heat illness when temperatures reach like 82 Fahrenheit and above extra safety precautions it's even hotter for that. However, the Calocia prior to the ruling taking effect had rolled back on the fact that prisons should be included as part of the indoor working environments here simply because the California financial department stated that it would be in the neighborhood billions of dollars to cool these prisons so that is something that we're obviously like our whole goal here is just like changing types of ways or like legislation trying to promote like incarcerated individuals people that work in the prisons as well should also have the same types of cooling standards that are necessary just because everyone can still experience like hot temperatures it's like a basic human right for like cooling you know just like at a safe maintainable temperature. Right and so our understanding then obviously Calo Shell helps to a certain extent and at least on our side we've been seeing that some limitations include not setting really indoor climate standards for individuals who live in workside work inside these correctional facilities so what steps would you say it would need to be taken next as a result of this. So I know that the CDCR for one is currently working on a pilot program to cool down three prisons out of like the 31 prisons that are part of the CDCR space however this pilot program like although it was approved this year the tests results are not expected till around mid-2029 and you know like this delay is due to a lot of reasons some of them being like is it cost effective to do this cooling how like how effective would it be to roll out to like 30 you know the rest of the other prisons in the CDCR so it's like something that they're also working on. I'm working on trying to find different ways of cooling these prisons especially a lot of these that are outdated don't really have HVACs out workout as much or good like not all of California prisons currently have you know HVAC even in there or some might have been inserting areas and not in others things like that so like that is something the CDCR is working on which I you know it's it's good it's a good idea however there should be ways for just like more intermediate ways of cooling. Yeah and yeah definitely let's go that there at least piloting a program because they're really not required or enforced at all to be providing heating resources or providing emergency evacuation plans for climate hazards protecting their workers anything like that but I do agree there's a lot of limitations there and it's important that we advocate for bills such as AB1424 to continue building on that and maybe provide a more immediate solution that's backed in both science and politics so what do you think we I guess your lab organizations like are there just people interested in topics like this can do to help and promote this kind of legislation. I mean one good thing that UCLA does provide is a lot of resources to have organizations that are that focus primarily on different forms of activism and I think that sense of variety definitely can play a role in how students specifically approach these sort of issues because obviously like not a lot of people care about incarcerated populations I mean not a lot of people care about these like underserved underrepresented populations in general so I think that by kind of just making it known and using our resources to our advantages or to our advantage it would definitely help make people care or people understand why our work is so important why we believe our work is so important why we believe that we should stand up for the incarcerated population and do and look into these things because a lot of times people don't even understand what goes on inside prison walls you know they don't understand like how work groups are divided or how the carceral system even works and a lot of times people don't even don't even care to know that those you're like your tax dollars and you're you living in California contributes to the system that is ongoing and so by making people care and by making people understand like what exactly is going on even if it kind of is just looking at commissary systems and then getting access to cooling it can definitely give people better insight on how to take further steps in you know establishing bills that are actually kind of that are not just reformists are that are actually sustainable in helping these incarcerated populations in an equitable manner yeah I would definitely say like just talk about it make sure people know about it talk about on social media because even though like we do believe that the overall goal like the ultimate goal should be the abolition of prisons reform is a good start because he is a weapon that prisons use against incarcerated folks and if we support bills like AB1424 that is taking that weapon away from the carceral system awesome thank you guys so much for coming back to the podcast today thank you so much for all your ideas all your opinions and I think the work you guys do at heat lab is absolutely invaluable I think he is one thing that people as you guys said at the beginning the silent killer I think it's one thing that a lot of people don't realize it's such a big issue especially because a lot of people I think are just think that it's just something we just live with they don't understand that it can be weaponized as you said they don't understand that it can have chronic effects so I think that the work you guys are doing is just amazing thank you guys for coming on today if you guys have any last takeaways you want to give go for it I think I'll just say at least from our end I think that last point that a couple of you all are making is really why it's so important that we're all here today and I think it's really encouraging that we have organizations like yours organizations like ours will link so it works together and really promote change and I think that is a really good starting point as you said to really more systemic change in the carceral system so thank you all for coming today thank you thank you thank you thank you. you you you you you you you [BLANK_AUDIO]