P087. Prisons facing climate change: Impact, mitigation and transformation

• In Event: Poster Session & Ice Cream Social

Abstract

Within the research project carried out at the Basque Institute of Criminology (University of the Basque Country, Spain), titled "Restorative justice for crimes against the environment and animals" (PID2020-114005GB-I00), financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, this poster presents an exploratory overview about the relationship between prisons and anthropogenic climate change.
This overview is developed by framing and answering four questions, taken into account the Spanish and comparative literature and scarce available data:
1) How do prisons contribute to climate change? To what extent do they contaminate and how?
2) What is the different impact on the diversity of stakeholders and levels that might be affected?
3) Can we talk of a positive obligation or duty of care in relation to inmates, communities and ecosystems? Are there developments in a so-called ecological penitentiary law, in theory and in practice?
4) What kind of practical responses can be provided to ecological and animal harm produced by or in prison infrastructures? Is the movement of re-scaling a potential answer? What about so-called green prisons? Can restorative justice offer solutions? Is it more about green washing?

Author

• Gema Varona, Senior researcher at the Basque Institute of Criminology (University of the Basque Country)