It is officially hot in Texas, and for most of the 150,000 inmates in the state’s sprawling prison system, it means another summer of seemingly endless months in cells where temperatures can climb north of 100 degrees.
How many more summers prisoners live without air conditioning will depend on how and when the courts rule in a years-long fight between prisoner advocates and Texas corrections officials.
The two sides are locked in a battle over whether super-heated conditions in Texas prisons are unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment and jeopardize inmates’ lives.
Advocates argue the extreme heat is particularly harmful for the thousands of inmates who are elderly or suffer from medical or mental health conditions. They want the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to provide air conditioning to regulate the temperatures.
Department officials contend that they already take adequate measures to ensure the safety of inmates and staff at state prisons, and that adding air conditioning to already aging buildings would be prohibitively expensive. State officials haven’t estimated the exact cost to add it or run it annually, the suit contends.
The Dallas Morning News reports that only 30 of Texas’ 109 prison units are fully air-conditioned. Particular areas of other units are air-conditioned, as are medical, geriatric and psychiatric facilities. Since 1998, prisoner advocates say, at least 20 inmates have died from heat-related causes.
To provide relief, Clark said, Texas prisons offer inmates ice and water and allow them to take additional showers and wear shorts,among other measures. Officers also are trained to recognize signs of heat-related illness.
Those measures are inadequate, though, inmates’ lawyers say.
