‘Man Down!’: Surviving the Texas Heat in Prisons Without Air Conditioning

On the third 100-degree day last week, trapped without air conditioning in a Texas prison north of Houston, Joseph Martire said he was beginning to feel overwhelmed. His breathing became heavy.

Martire had been imprisoned for nearly 16 years and expected to be released in a few weeks. But it was so hot that day, he remembered, that he wondered if he would make it that long. He was wet with sweat and felt so lightheaded that he had to brace himself against a wall. At one point he fainted.

“It’s kind of weird waking up with fingers in your eyes and not knowing how you got there,” said 35-year-old Martire of trying to revive him by tapping pressure points around his eyes. to press. He was eventually transferred to an air-conditioned emergency medical room. “They kept me there for two hours, drank ice water, salt water, took my temperature and made sure I was alive,” he said.

The weeks-long heat wave in June that scorched Texas was particularly brutal and dangerous in the state’s sprawling prison system, where a majority of inmates, and the guards who watch over them, struggle without air conditioning.

In more than a dozen interviews this week, current and former inmates, as well as their relatives and friends, described a basic effort to survive in the prisons, with inmates relying on hot water, wet towels and fans propelling hot air. Some flooded their cells with water from their combined sink-toilets, lying on the wet concrete for relief. Others, desperate for the attention of the guards, lit fires or began to shout in unison for water or help for an unconscious prisoner.

“When someone goes down, we start banging on the lockers and doors and shout, ‘Man down!’ said Luke King, 41, an inmate who, with Mr. Martire, is in a jail in Huntsville, Texas.With the heat, he said, that happens “at least daily.”

The overheated conditions in many prisons – true temperatures can reach 110 degrees or higher — have been a known problem for years, and not just in Texas. In the south, like prisons in usually hot states Louisiana, Alabama And Mississippi also do not offer centralized air conditioning in most cases, according to a 2019 report. And the heat dome that has been settling over Texas in recent weeks is increasingly shifting eastward, causing extreme temperatures in those southern states.

In Texas, the Republican-controlled House proposed this year to spend $545 million to install air conditioning in most state prisons that do not have it. The House also overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring temperatures in prisons to be no higher than 85 degrees and no lower than 65 degrees. Texas state law already requires prisons to keep temperatures within that range.

The bill to require refrigeration died in the Senate. And despite a record surplus, the final state budget did not specifically include money for prison air conditioning, though state prison officials have been slowly expanding cooling facilities within their existing budgets.

State Representative Terry Canales, a South Texas Democrat, blames the lack of action on Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a conservative Republican who heads the Senate. Mr. Patrick’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“The narrative comes from the 1980s that we should be tough on crime, and installing air conditioning in prisons seems to be soft on inmates,” said Mr. Canales, who sponsored temperature legislation and has introduced bills to reduce prison heat in each of the last two legislative sessions.

“The truth is that the state pays millions of dollars a year in heat-related lawsuits and we have a chronic shortage of detectives,” he added. “It’s not conservative. Being in prison is a punishment in itself. But no one has been reported to be tortured.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs the prisons, has not attributed any of the 32 inmate deaths recorded this month to excessive heat, and has not reported any heat-related deaths since 2012. Detainee advocates have questioned these statistics. A 2022 study of inmate deaths in Texas found that an average of more than 10 a year can be attributed to the heat in prisons without air conditioning.

“We are taking numerous precautions to mitigate the impact of high temperatures on those confined to our facilities,” Amanda Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement. “These efforts are working.” So far in June, she said, there have been five detainees with heat-related injuries that required medical attention “in addition to first aid.” There were three such cases last June.

She added, “Like those Texans who don’t have access to air conditioning in their homes,” inmates can keep themselves cool in other ways: ice water, fans, and “access to air-conditioned respite rooms when needed.” She said the department had taken steps to identify detainees who may be more vulnerable to the heat and prioritized placement in air-conditioned areas.

The department operates 98 facilities, 31 of which are fully air-conditioned and 14 are non-refrigeration. The rest only have air conditioning in certain areas. The department adds air conditioning every year and now has more than 43,000 “cool beds” — about a third of those in the system — according to Ms. Hernandez. The department has discussed plans to eventually air-condition all prisons at an expected cost of more than $1 billion, but still needs the funding.

In the meantime, several current inmates and their families said inmates suffered from the heat and were often unable to access promised respite areas, either due to staff shortages or because they were denied permission. Others said few ventilators were available, or that the water in their prison showers – intended for cooling – provided little relief.

“He says, ‘I feel terrible, I need to take a shower,'” says 41-year-old Cynthia Anguiano, describing a conversation with her fiancé, who has served a long sentence for a fatal shooting. “And then the water comes out like it’s almost hot.”

She said two of her brothers, also in Texas prisons, had shared their struggles with her through text messages. ‘Hey sister, what’s up? It’s been scorching hot in here,” read one of their posts, shared with The New York Times. “I get shortness of breath because there’s no air circulation.”

Hope Thommen, 40, said her boyfriend was serving a sentence for armed robbery at a Central Texas prison, which he described her as “like a chicken coop in the heat with no shade.” He told her that other inmates had set sheets and mattresses on fire, “trying to get the guards’ attention because they are hot,” she said.

“From the moment he wakes up, he says, ‘I feel like I’m dying,'” Ms Thommen said.

One of the most vocal groups advocating for Texas inmates arose out of concern over the heat in recent years. “The way to solve this problem would be to simply turn on the air conditioners,” said Amite Dominick, one of the authors of the 2022 heat death study and the founder of the group, Texas Prisons Community Advocates. “People are desperate. They are tired of it.”

Excessive temperatures in prisons have also been a problem for employees and guards, said Jeff Ormsby, the prison’s executive director. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Texas Correctionsa union representing prison staff.

“It’s been really bad. We’ve had several people call and say they’re stopping because of the heat,” Mr Ormsby said. “It sucks. The working conditions are appalling. The attacks increase in summer because of the heat. It’s just a stressor.”

One prison worker said the heat was so intense that his work clothes were often drenched in sweat and that at times he felt so overwhelmed that he had to sit down. The employee, who asked for anonymity because he feared reprisals for complaining about his working conditions, said he saw a colleague taken away in an ambulance this month.

Prisoners described similar experiences of watching those around them succumb to the extreme temperatures. “I have seen many old people die from this heat. There just isn’t any relief here, there isn’t,” said Mr. King in Huntsville, who was imprisoned for crimes like robbery and burglary. “I would hate to lose my life over this. I wouldn’t like to die because I’m in a hot cell.”

He added: “I understand that we are prisoners and we make mistakes. Paying for your mistakes is one thing. But living like that is wrong.”

Mr Martire, who was serving a sentence for burglary, said when he passed out from the heat this month there were two others in the emergency room, also recovering from overheating.

“It’s like being in a convection oven,” he said in a phone interview. “It heats up and it continues to heat up when the sun goes down.” He has tried to stay focused on his impending release, saying his plans to cope with the summer heat outdoors were relatively simple.

“Swim as much as possible,” he said.