Executive Summary

Nine of the ten warmest years recorded in California have occurred since 2014. Extreme heat is the deadliest climate hazard in the United States, and its consequences are unequally distributed; the communities most exposed are those shaped by redlining and sustained disinvestment. These are the same communities with the highest incarceration rates; when a family member is incarcerated, a household loses 64% of its assets and 65% cannot meet basic needs for food and housing.

Between 2015 and 2024, California spent $133.5 billion on prison facilities and administration, $30.9 billion on parole and county supervision, and $6.67 billion on community climate resilience programs. This capstone investigates the opportunities in treating extreme heat and mass incarceration as connected crises, and asks where the fiscal scale of climate risk can accelerate decarceration and reinvestment in community-based alternatives.

Applying an environmental risk framework and abolitionist accountability tools across three intersects of an individual’s experience with the criminal justice system in California, this capstone identifies a heat-incarceration feedback loop in which heat compounds criminal justice contact, and the carceral system in turn amplifies heat vulnerability.

Intersect 1: Community-led Resilience

Interrupting the heat-incarceration feedback loop begins in the community, where the conditions that drive both heat vulnerability and criminal justice contact can be addressed before system involvement.

  • Community capacity to manage both heat risk and criminal justice contact is built through social infrastructure in trusted community spaces. Place-based improvements in disinvested neighborhoods reduce violent crime, and community-based youth diversion costs one-tenth as much as detention.
  • Of 54 state-funded resilience hubs identified across five climate programs, six explicitly include criminal justice diversion in their project goals and center systems-impacted youth as co-designers; all six are led by community-based organizations, and none of the 21 public agency-led hubs address criminal justice involvement.
  • Recommendation: Recognize community-driven diversion as a climate adaptation strategy and expand state climate resilience program investment accordingly.

Intersect 2: State Carceral Facilities

Inside California’s 31 state prisons, incarcerated people are entirely dependent on CDCR for protection from climate hazards they cannot escape.

  • By mid-century, 75% of incarcerated Californians will experience three or more months of days above 90°F annually, up from 49% today. Heat exposure compounds health vulnerabilities, increases violence and infractions, and extends time served.
  • Heat-driven increases to violence, infractions, and time served are projected to add $19–27 million in annual marginal costs to CDCR by mid-century; the full cost, including healthcare and litigation, is substantially higher.
  • Recommendation: Reduce person-years of incarceration through infraction protocol reform during climate emergencies, publicly accessible interior temperature monitoring, and phased facility closure prioritized by heat vulnerability and cost.

Intersect 3: Community Corrections

After release, individuals on parole and probation live under supervision conditions that restrict where they can live, work, and move.

  • Supervision conditions create new heat exposure pathways: housing restrictions concentrate supervised individuals in heat-vulnerable neighborhoods, and compliance obligations limit their ability to seek cooling during heat events.
  • A policy gap assessment of CDCR’s Division of Adult Parole Operations and three county probation departments finds that none have developed emergency protocols for community-supervised populations during extreme heat events. Without explicit policy, every heat-related compliance decision defaults to individual officer discretion, compounding racially disparate outcomes and increasing technical violations that return individuals to custody.
  • Recommendation: Fund community-led research on parole and probation experiences during extreme heat events, authored by and centering formerly incarcerated individuals, as a precondition before developing emergency protocols for community corrections.

Acknowledgements

This capstone builds on decades of environmental justice, climate justice, and racial justice work by organizers, scholars, and communities who have fought for a more equitable future without cages.

This work would not be possible without Dorsey Nunn: thank you for your wisdom, leadership, and inspiration, and for asking me hard questions. Thank you to Nedric Miller for your kindness and generosity in schooling me and reminding me to take breaks. Thank you to Gilbert Murillo for sharing your story with me.

Thank you to the Climate Justice Coalition and the author team of the Racial Equity and Climate Justice Report for showing me the power of collective work.

Thank you for the guidance and feedback from my academic advisors, Dr. Charisma Acey and Dr. Stephen Collier, and professors Margaretta Lin, Dr. Justin Hosbey, Dr. Jennifer Skeem, Dr. Zoé Hamstead, and Dr. Max Buchholz.

Thank you to Catalina Garzon and Jacy Bowles at CURYJ, Eric Henderson at the Ella Baker Center, Dr. Ufuoma Ovienmhada at the University of Arizona, Samantha Liapes at Land Together, and Dr. Bharat Venkat at UCLA for your invaluable time, interviews, and advice.

Eternal gratitude to my classmates for listening to my ideas and keeping me on task. Thank you to my family and friends for your support and being patient with me. Most of all, thank you to my husband, Kai, and to my daughters: it’s your world that we do this work for.