Light Pollution Within Jails And Prisons
No average free citizen, nor incarcerated individual, has hardly ever heard of the term “light pollution” (otherwise known as “constant illumination”) which is very harmful to the lives of humans and animals.
Jailers across the country continually adopt the malevolent practice of installing fluorescent lighting within housing cells of jail and prison facilities alike. Officials usually have complete power to turn the light off at night, but choose not to do so. This scheme, to my knowledge, is a sure form of corporal punishment.
To make matters worse, sheriffs and prison guards threaten convicts and detainees with disciplinary infractions for covering the light up at nighttime. When officials usually have a standard-issue flashlight that can easily be used when conducting their security checks.
Scientific studies have rendered evidence, showing how light pollution is a contributing factor to the causation of triggering diseases. These diseases can range from hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and a slew of other health problems.
Light pollution initially affects our circadian rhythms, leading to the onslaught of ensuing problems that follow afterwards, which disrupt the systems of the body. Our circadian rhythm is the body’s internal sleep-wake-clock, which is governed by the way light enters into our bodies through the retinas of the eyes. Light itself, is usually measured in the fashionable method of lumens, luxes, and candle watts. Whenever our exposure to constant illumination is 24/7 for weeks, months, and years, could be why a bunch of us may be experiencing health problems, while being totally unaware that light pollution is the hidden catalyst behind our illnesses. Especially when there’s evidence of sleep deprivation being the main culprit.
Keenan vs. Hall, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, is one of the leading cases amongst many others in the federal district courts, where decisions have been made on this matter that have set precedence. Despite this, jailers continue to practice this form of penology that brings about the needless cruel and unusual double-whammy punishments caused by light pollution. Over the past several decades across the country, animal facilities housing monkeys and other creatures were forced to shut down due to those particular animals’ exposure to the dangers of constant illumination, that was ultimately deemed to be animal cruelty.
The question to be answered here, should one might think to ask is this: shouldn’t the life of a human be just as much valued as a precious animal’s life, if not more, regardless of incarceration?
MIM(Prisons) responds:This is just one of many examples of the disregard for prisoners’ health under imperialism. The negative impacts on the health of oppressed peoples from U.$. prison conditions is just one contributor to a system of low-intensity genocide in this country.
We fight for a socialist world, where prisoners’ health is taken as seriously as that of lab animals or of any other humyn beings for that matter. The current system dehumynizes prisoners as part of a system of national oppression, and control of surplus populations. Through national liberation we will build a system of rehabilitation that recognizes the value of restoring people who have committed crimes against the people to citizens that contribute to society.
