Geriatric inmates at the Pack Unit testified that they'd suffered from heat-related...
But Texas hasn't officially reported a heat-related prison death in more than a decade; the last death reported as heat-related was in 2012, said Hernandez, the spokesperson for TDCJ.determined that an average of 14 heat-related deaths occurred each year between 2001 and 2019 in Texas prisons that don't have air conditioning. The study found that no deaths were associated with heat in the prisons that had air conditioning during this time period.
“Nobody's asking to change the prison into a hotel, but you're endangering people's lives,” said Edwards, who examined conditions for years during litigation seeking relief for people at the Wallace Pack Unit lawsuit, northwest of Houston.About 70 percent of Texas’s prisons don’t have air conditioning in inmate living spaces, the Houston Chronicle reported in May.
“There is zero reason to ever build a facility without air conditioning and so you have to ask yourself why that happened and it happened because they wanted to do it,” Edwards said. “They went out of their way to build a building without safety features, I would say as a form of punishment.”Houston man who dreamed of becoming a martyr for ISIS sentenced to 13 years for supporting terrorism
“So they don't really want to go to those cooling beds because they don't get any movement,” she said.Without no air conditioning prisons made of concrete and steel get particularly hot. If temperatures are extreme for three days in a row, prisons implement a protocol that includes additional measures, halting work and outdoor recreation altogether.One jug per unit
In the Texas A&M study, people said they were denied access to respite areas or cold showers, which the prisons say are open to all.
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