What links Climate and Criminal Justice Reform?

There is a saying in movement work that “all our grievances are connected.” Housing, criminal justice, health, immigration, worker rights, and many other issues are often discussed in overlapping ways. One issue that seems like more of a stretch to connect to work to end mass incarceration is climate. Yet these issues are deeply linked. The social and democratic cohesion necessary to make major moves on climate – deeply restructuring our economy and infrastructure away from burning carbon – cannot exist while we’re still felonizing and incarcerating millions of people a year. 

Last fall, Nautilus Magazine published an interview with Luke Kemp, an expert in existential risk who studies extreme climate scenarios. The following exchange captures the point well: 

Has studying these kinds of looming potential disasters changed anything in the way you live your own life? 

If anything, it has made me much more aware of and cognizant of issues of justice. I think some of the best evidence we have suggests that what really builds resilience in societies is a high level of democracy and participation. It makes for a more flexible society that is much more willing to respond to crises and problems. So, strangely enough, my studies of global catastrophe have made me a much bigger fan of democratization. It’s changed my politics in many ways. 

The injustices of mass incarceration directly and indirectly corrode democracy. Rebuilding a strong democracy that has the legitimacy and resilience to take major strides on climate requires dismantling this system.  

Moreover: prison and crime rhetoric tend to infect and warp our political discourse, positioning anyone not in favor of broadening punishment and criminalization as a threat. This pushes politicians to set aside everything we know about how to create solutions and instead perform what we might call ‘safety theater,’ championing jail and prison interventions that don’t work in order to seem credible on public safety.  This distracting rhetoric saps attention from the task of forging the collective political will necessary to address the climate crisis, and often benefits reactionaries who are terrible on both climate and justice.