Around 1m people, including 13,000 youths, especially vulnerable because they can do little to protect themselves, co-author says
Nearly half of US prisons draw water from sources likely contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, new research finds.
At least around 1m people incarcerated in the US, including 13,000 juveniles, are estimated to be housed in the prisons, and they are especially vulnerable to the dangerous chemicals because there is little they can do to protect themselves, said Nicholas Shapiro, a study co-author at the University of California in Los Angeles.
“We need to think about who is exposed and who has the least agency to mitigate their exposure – that’s why this is such a unique population,” he said. “We see the dehumanization of incarcerated people across the country, and these exposures are symptoms of that larger problem.”
I just want to highlight this because private prisons make up the extreme minority of US prisons (about 8%), so they are often statistically irrelevant when looking at issues related to the US prison system as a whole.
The public (state and federal) prisons are the main profiteers of these sorts of policies. Forced prison labor, often contracted out to manufacturing companies, is encouraged under the excuse of building a work ethic that the prisoners can eventually re-enter society with. But that doesn’t stop the government from selling the services of prison laborers to the highest bidder.
Moreover, other institutions (public and private) benefit from this practice as well. For example, if you’ve ever lived on campus in an American university before, chances are your cheap dorm furniture was made in part by prison slave laborers. Students pay the state to attend public university, the state pays the contractor for the furniture, the contractor pays the state a pittance for the contract, and the prison gets to say they are helping “rehabilitate” their inmates (though the state officials who award these contracts are also certainly getting some generous kickbacks to ensure the contracts keep coming).
You’re right. I didn’t realize until you prompted me to look up more about it. I edited my comment to correction. Thank you!