Video: Climate and Punishment

In the past decade, dangerous weather events have become more frequent and extreme. Public and elected officials are finally beginning to take this crisis seriously. But there’s one population in the U.S. facing some of the worst climate threats whom almost no one is talking about: incarcerated people.

In this video, we travel to some of the highest-risk facilities identified by The Intercept as part of our Climate and Punishment investigation to hear from incarcerated people and their families about living with the threat of climate disaster while behind bars.

A California mother worries as wildfires approach the prison where her young asthmatic son is incarcerated. A formerly incarcerated man with a rare kidney condition talks about how his health deteriorated in a sweltering Texas facility. While he was in prison, his wife became an advocate for installing air conditioning in Texas prisons, but so far lawmakers have done little to mitigate this crisis.