John,

We recently experienced the hottest month ever recorded. With more extreme heat waves coming due to climate change, prisons and jails are locking people up in deadly heat.

Rep. Cori Bush and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee called for a bipartisan investigation into heat conditions in U.S. detention facilities during this crisis.

In Texas, over 40 incarcerated people died during this summer’s heat wave. Despite temperatures regularly soaring above triple digits in the state’s detention facilities, 70% of the state’s prisons and jails lack air conditioning. Many other states are also failing incarcerated people when it comes to providing cooling during heat waves.

In detention facilities, inadequate cooling is deadly and inhumane. Incarcerated people and staff also experience debilitating effects of heat-based illness, which can be intolerable. Heat also degrades physical and mental health over time, and it's linked to an increase in suicide attempts among people incarcerated in Texas during the summer months.

Sign now to demand human rights for incarcerated people. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and counties and states across the country must provide adequate cooling so people no longer die from extreme heat while trapped in detention facilities.

With rising temperatures, states and our federal government are trapping people in dangerous and cruel conditions.

As Amite Dominick, founder of Texas Prisons Community Advocates, says: “We have people going in for unpaid parking tickets and [drug] possession charges, and they end up getting a death sentence because of the heat.”

This is an outrageous violation of people's human rights and civil rights.

Texas has protocols for heat waves -- such as providing fans, extra water, ice, and cold showers -- but doesn’t follow them. With poor ventilation in detention facilities, it often gets hotter than the outdoors.

And according to the CDC, fans don't protect against heat-related illness when it's above 95 degrees. Instead, the “strongest protective factor” against heat-related illness and death is air conditioning. Even a few hours a day in air conditioning makes a big difference.

Our unjust criminal legal system dehumanizes people who are incarcerated. But people behind bars are some of the most marginalized in society. They are our family members and our neighbors, and they are human beings who deserve protection.

We can’t let people continue to die from heat in prisons and jails. Please sign now to demand that U.S. detention facilities create a humane environment for incarcerated people, including by providing air conditioning.

In solidarity,

Team Cori