[Record temperatures in much of the U.S. threatening more people
in prisons. ]
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“CONCRETE COFFINS:” SURVIVING EXTREME HEAT BEHIND BARS  
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Jamiles Lartey
July 22, 2023
The Marshall Project
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_ Record temperatures in much of the U.S. threatening more people in
prisons. _

The William G. McConnell Unit in Beeville, Texas. A 2022 study
concluded that 271 deaths in Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019
“may be attributable to extreme heat days.”, ERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED
PRESS

 

Sweltering doesn’t even describe it.

This week, more than a third of the U.S. population was under
excessive heat warnings and heat advisories
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Dozens of major cities and states have set new temperature records in
recent weeks
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including Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which logged its hottest June ever
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Less than an hour from the city is Louisiana State Penitentiary,
better known as Angola prison, where the state set up a temporary
youth jail last fall
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in a building that once housed adults awaiting execution.

A federal court filing this week from the Louisiana American Civil
Liberties Union alleges that the youth at Angola face inhumane
conditions, in large part because they are regularly kept in
non-airconditioned cells for up to 72 hours
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In a statement to the court, medical expert Dr. Susi U. Vassallo
called the practice “foolhardy and perilous,” and said, “I would
not dare to keep my dog in these conditions for fear of my dog
dying.”

This June and July at the prison, the heat index has regularly
exceeded 125 degrees
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which the National Weather Services classifies as “extreme
danger” for heat-related illness and death
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In 2021, Louisiana spent $2.8 million
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study what it would cost to cool all of its prisons with air
conditioning, but it is still waiting on results
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In the meantime, adults at Angola — the state’s largest facility
— struggle for relief. “It’s over 100 degrees in there. I lie on
the floor. I barely can breathe. God, it feels like it’s
suffocating!” an unidentified person told The Advocate.

It’s hardly just a Louisiana problem. Texas is the state most
frequently tied to prison heat
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as it is both the largest state prison system
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the country, and one of the hottest states on average
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second only to Florida. More than two-thirds of Texas state
prisons do not have air conditioning in their living quarters
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In May, state senators killed a bill
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which had passed the state House — that would have invested half a
billion dollars into air conditioning prisons over the next eight
years.

Texas hasn’t officially declared a heat-related death
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bars since 2012, But a November study in the Journal of American
Medicine
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that 271 deaths in Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019 “may be
attributable to extreme heat days.” A separate nationwide study
released this week
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that for every 10 degrees above the average summer temperature, prison
deaths increase by 5.2%.

The Texas prison system does have a program for sorting out which
people are most sensitive to the heat and transferring them to
so-called “cool beds” at prisons with air conditioning, largely
because of lawsuits. Those left behind describe the conditions as
torture
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Last month, The New York Times interviewed more than a dozen currently
and formerly incarcerated people about the “effort at survival”
behind bars
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extreme heat. Several reported flooding their cells and lying on the
wet concrete for relief, while others scream or light fires to draw
attention from guards. In a newsletter about heat in prisons last
summer, we covered some more of the desperate and inventive methods
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people employ to survive the heat
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In a powerful essay earlier this month for Prism Reports, Kwaneta
Harris, who is in prison in Texas, writes that women in her unit
regularly engage in self-harm
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to be transferred to the air-conditioned psychiatric unit, a tactic
that guards try to dissuade with threats of tear gas. She also notes
the dramatic increase in the cost of bottled water
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the prison store in the depths of the heatwave. “I guess price
gouging is legal when the state is the gouger and prisoners are the
customers. This all contributes to desperation,” Harris writes.

Corrections officers don’t spend as much time in prisons as
incarcerated people, but many still face punishing conditions from the
heat. It’s not uncommon for guards to work 12- or 14-hour shifts
outfitted in a bulky stab-proof vest, the head of an officer’s
union in Texas told KXAN-TV.
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comparable to if you go buy the heaviest coat possible, put that coat
on and go to Texas Memorial Stadium and run up and down the stairs
constantly,” Executive Director Jeff Ormsby told the station.

Corrections officials and lawmakers throughout the South
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cited non-airconditioned prisons as a major impediment to hiring
officers
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As my colleague Maurice Chammah recently told PBS News Hour
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“Part of that is that they don't want to live through the heat, but
part of it is also the corrections officers don't want to live with
the increased levels of violence, of suicide, and other problems that
are in a prison during these hottest summer months.”

Staff shortages, in turn, can worsen punishingly hot conditions. At
the Dauphin County Prison in central Pennsylvania, prisoners
have been on lockdown through most of July due to staffing issues
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according to county officials. That means people spend 23 hours a day
in cells with no ventilation, air conditioning or windows. Lack of
staff can also hamper access to the “heat mitigation” strategies
that most prison systems employ, which include access to ice, extra
showers, and fans
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Even facilities with air conditioning can face dangerous heat when
those systems fail. That was the case on Tuesday at the Perryville
women’s prison complex in Arizona, where some evaporative coolers
failed. Indoor temperatures quickly climbed as high as 98 degrees
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and women there told KPNX that the cells were like “concrete
coffins.”

_Jamiles Lartey is a New Orleans-based staff writer for The Marshall
Project. Previously, he worked as a reporter for the Guardian covering
issues of criminal justice, race and policing. Jamiles was a member of
the team behind the award-winning online database “The Counted,”
tracking police violence in 2015 and 2016. In 2016, he was named
“Michael J. Feeney Emerging Journalist of the Year” by the
National Association of Black Journalists. In his off time, Jamiles is
an avid drummer, playing and recording with artists in the New Orleans
area._

* US Prisons
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* heat wave deaths
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