Corporate environmental violence and racism

Drawing upon a social justice framework, this analysis expands and integrates issues relating to corporate violence and environmental justice to investigate the spatial distribution of chemical accidents across census tracts in Hillsborough County, Florida. To test the hypothesis that corporate environmental violence (CEV) is more likely to impact blacks and Hispanics, data from the 1990 census was combined with chemical accident data obtained from the U.S. EPA under the Accidental Release Information Program (ARIP). The results of our bivariate analysis suggest that blacks and Hispanics reside closer to chemical facilities reporting accidents than their white counterparts. A multivariate analysis of the problem reveals that racial sub-populations are much more likely to be proximate to these accidents even when facility location and urbanization are controlled. We discuss the implications of our findings and point out that any solutions to the unequal distribution of CEV must lie outside the traditional criminal justice response.