Disaster resilience and sustainability of incarceration infrastructures: A review of the literature

This review evaluates the state of academic literature on disaster resilience and sustainability of incarceration infrastructures, focusing on engineering and architecture. The increasing frequency and intensity of climate crises, including global pandemics and ecological disasters, and the rise of mass incarceration around the world makes such a review timely. We conducted six targeted searches to identify relevant journal articles and two additional searches for literature on resilience and sustainability of schools for comparison. We present data on the results for all search categories, including search terms and qualitative interpretation of the literature. For three of our searches, we present metadata on the specific intersection with incarceration infrastructures investigated, type of facility, and location. We supplement our database search with governmental and nongovernmental agency publications. The results of our search demonstrate a dearth in academic research published at the intersection of incarceration, disaster resilience, and sustainability. This gap in the literature signals a lack of attention and knowledge about the ways researchers and practitioners as well as governmental agencies can predict and mitigate the impact of disasters on incarcerated people's lives. Overall, this paper offers an introduction on the topic of resilience and sustainability of engineering and architectural design for incarceration infrastructure, as well as future areas for additional research including how engineers and architects can engage with questions of prison abolition and justice.