{"id":33790,"date":"2022-07-15T00:43:44","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T00:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=33790"},"modified":"2022-07-15T00:43:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T00:43:44","slug":"deadly-heat-remains-concern-at-texas-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/15\/deadly-heat-remains-concern-at-texas-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly heat remains concern at Texas prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Amid a summer heat wave that has pushed temperatures in some Texas prisons without air conditioning to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), many inmates fear dying or falling gravely ill from the hot weather and believe actions taken by officials to mitigate the dangerous conditions continue to fall short, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

The report comes as the head of the Texas prison system told lawmakers this week the oppressive working conditions caused by the lack of air conditioning in many of the state\u2019s units is likely contributing to difficulties officials are having in filling 7,000 prison job vacancies.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWithout air-conditioning or regulated temperatures, the system will continue to be under extreme stress and members of the (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) population will remain on the brink of potential health emergencies. This could kill them, but if it doesn\u2019t, it will certainly degrade their health over time,\u201d according to a report released this week by the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and Texas Prisons Community Advocates, an advocacy group for inmates.<\/p>\n

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Advocates and others have been highly critical of the lack of air conditioning in the Texas prison system, which has 120,000 inmates. Only 30% of Texas prison units are fully air-conditioned.<\/p>\n


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In 2017, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison in Houston said the nation\u2019s largest prison system was \u201cdeliberately indifferent\u201d to heat risks and subjected inmates to \u201ca substantial risk of serious injury or death.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ellison\u2019s comments came as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by inmates at one unit.<\/p>\n

Texas is one of at least thirteen states in the U.S. that doesn\u2019t have universal air conditioning in state prisons, according to the university\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

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In the wake of the settlement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, or TDCJ, formalized many of the heat mitigation policies it had been following, including providing water and ice, creating respite areas where inmates could go to cool down and allowing inmates to purchase cooling items such as fans or towels.<\/p>\n

But the university report called the procedures in place \u201cinefficient and ineffective\u201d as they\u2019re not designed to offer system-wide relief but instead rely on overworked prison employees to offer help on an individual basis to inmates while also suffering through the heat themselves.<\/p>\n

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As part of the report, 309 Texas inmates were surveyed about their experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fainted four times in my cell and no reports were filed and I received no medical attention,\u201d one inmate wrote.<\/p>\n

Other inmates described seeing prisoners pass out from exhaustion as they worked outside in the heat and not being allowed to go to respite areas where they could cool down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue is only going to continue to worse with increasing annual temperatures,\u201d Carlee Purdum, a Texas A&M research professor who helped write the report, told the Texas House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.<\/p>\n