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INTRODUCTION

In 1982, the allocation of Warren County PCB Landfill in Warren County, North Carolina, raised great public discussion of environmental justice. This landfill was created to dump contaminated soil produced by illegal dumping of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB). This landfill was placed in a community where more than 80 of its residents were black with low-income. Citizens of this neighborhood fought for their environmental rights, and for the first of in American history, people were jailed for preventing pollution. This issue raised the question of environmental racism as well as environmental justice to the public.

 

Environmental justice is the recognition that minority and low-income communities often bear a disproportionate share of environmental costs - and the perception that this is unjust (Massey, 2004). Whereas fair treatment, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2008, means that “no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations” ( Wang and Feliberty, 2010). Environmental justice is related to the distribution of waste disposal sites, exposure to air pollution, proximity to toxic waste releasing facilities and others. Fair environmental treatment is never achieved, and moreover, according to 1987 New York Commission for Racial Justice, race was by far the most prominent factor in the location of commercial hazardous-waste landfills, more prominent than household income and home values (Massey, 2004, p. 7).

After more than twenty years of Warren County Landfill controversy and debates over environmental justice, this problem is still present in the current society. Bullard et al. (2008) compared 2000 U.S. ethnic distribution as well as the location of commercial waste facilities across the United States and found significant racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of nation’ s hazardous waste facilities.  Wang and Feliberty (2010) studied whether “environmental inequity” was associated with the spatial distribution of Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) facilities in Cook County, Chicago. The result showed that both race and income were relevant to the environmental inequity issue. Hispanic population faced environmental inequity in Cook County, but not other minority groups like Asian Americans and Black Americans. In terms of income, residents closer to TRI facilities tended to have lower income than residents living farther away.

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The process of choosing a potential site for toxic releasing facilities is highly racialized. Just so, crime is also racialized. Riedel’s study (2003) of victimization in Los Angeles County found that Black had the highest homicide rate followed by Latino, and White had the lowest homicide rate. Martinez (2003) found a positive relationship between household income, race, and crime. Blacks and Latinos were more likely to reside in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, where higher numbers of homicides were also found. These studies used race as the explanatory factor for criminal activities, yet, is it possible that degraded environment triggers criminal activities? Since racial minority groups tend to settle in polluted areas, the crime rate of minority neighborhood increased.

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Herrnstadt et al. (2016) examined the relationship between pollution and crime rate. Pollution can trigger a psychological response as a result of physical discomfort associated with air pollution exposure. Exposure to pollution can also lead to oxidative stress and the inflammation of nerve tissues in the body and the brain (Herrnstadt e al., 2016, p.6). Physical discomfort and nerve inflammation triggered aggressive behavior; hence, the number of criminal activities increased. After investigating and analyzing the spatial patterns in Chicago and Los Angeles, Herrnstadt et al. discovered that exposure to air pollution increased the number of crimes in both cities. Neighborhood located at downwind side of air pollution releasing facilities experienced 6.14% and 2.2% increases in violent crime incidents in Los Angeles and Chicago, respectively.

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Studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between environmental racism and race and income as well as environmental pollution and criminal activities. Nevertheless, no study has incorporated these three factors together. As a result, in this project, we locate our area of interest in Chicago, Illinois. We will first explore whether environmental protection is irrelevant or not for poor and visible minority communities. Then, we will discover if environmental justice is related to crime. By doing so, we aim to see if poor and minority communities face both environmental injustice and community safety risk.

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Our hypotheses are:

  1. Polluting facilities are located in low-income, visible minority communities;

  2. More criminal activities are found in poor and polluted neighborhoods; and

  3. Outdoor criminal activities are clustered in heavily polluted areas.

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