Cages in Coalfields: Environmental Justice and Fighting Toxic Prisons Register

Date and Time:
Tue, Feb 17, 2026; 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM (Eastern)

Add to Calendar Cages in Coalfields: Environmental Justice and Fighting Toxic Prisons

February Program - Professor Judah Schept tells the story of the people of Letcher County Kentucky's long fight against the building of a federal prison on a mountain-top removal site.

150 State St, Louisville, KY 40206, USA

Webinar URL:

38.25575400,-85.71612900 Steve Henry daddytcb@bellsouth.net MM/DD/yyyy amOUuwqNAzpGSXwtHmnd12740

Organized By: Greater Louisville Group

Location: 150 State St, Louisville, KY 40206, USA

Map | Directions

Event Organizers:
Steve Henry
daddytcb@bellsouth.net

Cages in the Coalfields: Development, Criminalization, and Incarceration in Central Appalachia

Central Appalachia is a central site of mass incarceration. The region is home to 16 prisons; there are 8 prisons alone in Eastern Kentucky, where full and overcrowded jails extend the expansive carceral geography to the local level. While these institutions reflect our national and state investment in criminalization and punitive sentencing policies, they also serve as rural development projects bound in various ways to the decline of coal. From calls for rural jobs in corrections to prisons built on mountaintop removal sites to jails as revenue strategies, the carceral expansion in the region must be understood as a response to multiple crises. This talk, by justice studies scholar and Sierra Club Executive Committee member Judah Schept, will examine both the crises and the ways that prisons and jails have responded, as well as the work of the "Building Community Not Prisons" coalition to stop the construction of FCI Letcher (Federal Correctional Institution), the newest prison planned for the region.

Please join us on February 17 for this important presentation. We meet at United Crescent Hill Ministries Building, 150 State St, 40206. Following the presentation, copies of Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia will be available for purchase and autographing. Book sales help support the Greater Louisville Sierra Club.

Note: This will be a hybrid meeting, that is, both in-person and virtual. Once you hit the "RSVP" button, two things will happen:

(1) You'll be taken to a Zoom meeting registration page. We hope you’ll attend in person, but if you want the option of attending virtually, then please complete the Zoom registration form (this secondary registration enhances security).
(2) You’ll receive a confirmation email that will also contain the Zoom registration link.

Our meetings are always free and open to the public.

Judah Schept is a Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia (New York University Press, 2022) and Progressive Punishment: Job Loss, Jail Growth, and the Neoliberal Logic of Carceral Expansion (New York University Press, 2015). He is co-editor of The Jail is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration (Verso Books, 2024). His writing can also be found in journals such as Radical Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Punishment and Society, Social Justice, the Boston Review, Inquest, n+1, and The New York Times. He holds a PhD from Indiana University and a BA from Vassar College.

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