U.S. Immigration Detention Facility Proximity to Superfund Sites: Private Detention and the Treadmill of Production

• In Event: Green Criminology IV: Ecological Disorganization and Environmental Injustice(s)

Abstract

This study first finds that nearly half of immigration detention facilities (IDF) are located within ten (10) miles of a Superfund site. Next, regressing facility proximity data on county-level economic and social conditions finds a percentage point increase in a county’s unemployment rate in 2017 compared to 1990 is associated with an 8 percent decrease in distance between an IDF and Superfund site. Movements supporting IDfs near Superfund sites are motivated more by economic precarity than perceived cultural threat. This aligns with the motivation of the citizen/worker actor in the Treadmill of Production (To). A secondary analysis reveals detention corporation’s annual revenue and government contracts increase when they spend more money on political campaigns and lobbying. This fulfills the state and corporate actor role in the ToP. Though treadmill theory often focuses on the environment, this study shows that incarceration and detention policies are constructed by state, corporate, and labor actors to maintain accumulation. This is used to reestablish the state's legitimacy through the allure of jobs in areas exposed to environmental harm that delegitimizes these actors. These associations further reveal the role of state-corporate crime and the cyclical relationship of ecological and social disorganization.

Author

• Alex Hagan, Colorado State University