by Kim Hilsenbeck
The Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit that works to improve prison conditions, filed two lawsuits recently to force prisons to pay for air conditioning at every jail facility in the state – all 111 of them. The cost? It’s really unknown, according to Austin attorney Scott Medlock, director of prisons’ rights program at TCRP.
“It really just depends on what kind of air you’re talking about,” Medlock said. “For example, central air would be more expensive than window units.”
He was unable to give a ballpark figure, citing that his organization hasn’t been able to get any estimates from prison officials on the cost.
Medlock said there are also some low-cost alternatives to consider, such as installing awnings over windows to create more shade inside cells and other rooms, or installing sun-blocking screens on windows.
He suggested Texas prison officials may also consider moving the most vulnerable inmates, including those with health conditions that make them more susceptible to heat-related problems, to the air-conditioned part of a prison unit, such as the visitation rooms, for a few hours a day.
Most Texas prisons are air conditioned only in administrative and some treatment areas.
Ironically, Medlock said most solitary confinement areas of prisons are already air conditioned, but temporarily moving inmates to those cells to cool them down would create legal issues.
The U.S. Supreme Court has long said that while the Constitution “does not mandate comfortable prisons,” officials “must provide humane conditions of confinement.”
The federal lawsuits filed in Galveston last week name the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, prison officials and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, which provides inmate care. They allege that 13 Texas convicts died since 2007 – with 10 of those between July and August 2011 – because of prison officials’ negligence.
Prisons spokesman John Hurt declined comment on the lawsuits, according to a report in the Austin American Statesman. Hurt said prisons take summer precautions such as restricting activity during hottest parts of the day, providing water and ice in work and housing areas and training staff on heat-related illnesses.
