Before hurricanes Helene and Milton, officials failed to evacuate people in jails and prisons—yet most states rely on incarcerated people to work disaster response for little to no pay.

Incarcerated women fill sandbags before Hurricane Dorian in Florida in 2019. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA via Getty) When the need arises for disaster preparation, response, and recovery efforts, incarcerated people are put to work. With cleanup efforts underway in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, they have cut down trees and cleared hundreds of miles of ...

What If Disaster Strikes Here?

Jared Bozydaj is an incarcerated writer and activist. He is the co-founder of Products of Our Environment, a collaborative of scholars and artists working on issues of environmental justice and incarceration across the prison wall, which is supported by the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities. Adam Roberts, a founding member of the Attica Wri ...