Pollution, Prisons, and the Power of Women: Does Women's Leadership in Government Decrease Emissions Caused by the Prison Industrial Complex?

Portland State University

Pollution caused by large corporations is the primary reason for environmental degradation and the prison industrial complex is no exception. The purpose of this study is to contextualize the carceral system and its relationship to climate change from a critical ecofeminist perspective. Critical ecofeminism contends that the patriarchal nature of capitalism forces women to generate forms of resistance against essentialist systems--which attributes to their broader understanding of environmental degradation and the oppression of marginalized identities. Using the Fact Sheet Archive on Women in State Legislatures (1997-2016) which reports the percentage of women-identified legislators and governors in the US, this study will explore whether or not the independent effect of mass incarceration emissions decreases when more women are represented in legislative bodies. This work is meant to contribute to growing bodies of knowledge concerning critical environment justice studies, racial capitalism, and other intersectional frameworks.