Marqui Clardy
8/21/2021

According to 8News (WRIC Richmond, Virginia), 23 percent of all Virginia offenders are housed in prisons that lack air conditioning. These are mainly the older prisons that were built prior to 1990, before air conditioning was considered a necessity behind bars. Rather than take the necessary measures to upgrade these facilities, the Virginia DOC announced that they opted to spend more than $2 million dollars this summer on extra ice, water, and fans to keep offenders in these facilities "comfortable." In a response to an email from 8News inquiring about these efforts, Augusta Correctional Center - one of Virginia's non-air-conditioned prisons - stated that each of its housing units has ice machines, ice chests and wall-mounted fans, and that offenders have individual fans in their cells. From the outside looking in, it may appear that the VADOC is doing a satisfactory job of preventing overheating at these prisons, but as someone who has been housed at Augusta Correctional Center, as well as other facilities that lack air conditioning, I firmly disagree. Keeping us "comfortable" isn't the issue; it's about keeping us safe.

Some might consider air conditioning a luxury to which prisoners aren't necessarily entitled. However, with the advent of climate change over the past decade or so, spring and summer temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees. The temperatures inside non-air-conditioned prison cells are often even higher than they are outside, and we are locked inside of them for up to 24 hours a day. Keep in mind that these are not the types of cells portrayed in movies like "Shawshank Redemption" where the walls and doors are made of bars which allow air to circulate freely. Most present-day housing units are constructed with solid walls and doors made of concrete and metal - which both conduct heat - so there's little to no air circulation. Make no mistake about it: it can be VERY unsafe for offenders to be housed in prisons that lack air conditioning. During my time at those facilities, there were several days I caught severe headaches because it was so unbearably hot in my cell, and just as many nights that I laid in my bunk sweating profusely, unable to sleep because of the sweltering heat and humidity. I've also witnessed other offenders faint, have heat strokes, go into seizures, and have other serious medical issues due to extreme temperatures.

In each of the non-air-conditioned prisons I've ever been housed, I wrote the administration to ask if there were any plans for them to have AC systems installed. Their responses were always the same, which was that the installation and maintenance of AC units would be "too expensive." Never mind the dangerous and potentially lethal heat risks to the thousands of offenders housed there: apparently our safety wasn't in the budget. Does that sort of deliberate indifference to the potential harm posed by extreme heat in prisons not constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment? According to a research article published by the American Journal of Public Health, heat-related deaths have been documented here in Virginia's prison system, as well as in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas prisons. In Texas alone, at least 13 offenders who were housed in non-air-conditioned prison have died of heat stroke within the past decade. [Source: KCBD11, Lubbock, Texas.] Lawsuits and complaints of severe heat conditions have been filed in Missouri, Louisiana, Arizona, and several other states. What does it say about our prison system that, although prisoners are dying due to extreme heat, they are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to have air conditioning installed in all facilities? What does it say about the U.S. that there are so many people incarcerated, our safety, constitutional rights and human rights are being compromised for the sake of budgetary concerns? As with most other prison issues, there seems to be an underlying notion that we are less than human, and therefore undeserving of a humane level of consideration, compassion, respect, and treatment.

Giving us water and ice helps, but that's clearly not a long-term solution to this problem. Neither are fans, which - to be clear - we must purchase OURSELVES from the Property Department for around $30 dollars each (a price that not every offender can afford). Fans don't magically create cool air: when heat indexes rise to unsafe levels, they simply blow around the same insufferable heat and humidity from which we need protection. How much longer will state corrections departments continue putting Band-Aids on this problem before they accept the fact that surgery is needed? A single inmate death should've been enough for this issue to have been taken seriously. But more than a dozen over the span of a decade is outright unacceptable.

Their responses were always the same, which was that the installation and maintenance of AC units would be "too expensive." Never mind the dangerous and potentially lethal heat risks to the thousands of offenders housed there: apparently our safety wasn't in the budget. Does that sort of deliberate indifference to the potential harm posed by extreme heat in prisons not constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment? According to a research article published by the American Journal of Public Health, heat-related deaths have been documented here in Virginia's prison system, as well as in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas prisons. In Texas alone, at least 13 offenders who were housed in non-air-conditioned prison have died of heat stroke within the past decade. [Source: KCBD11, Lubbock, Texas.] Lawsuits and complaints of severe heat conditions have been filed in Missouri, Louisiana, Arizona, and several other states. What does it say about our prison system that, although prisoners are dying due to extreme heat, they are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to have air conditioning installed in all facilities? What does it say about the U.S. that there are so many people incarcerated whose constitutional and human rights are being compromised for the sake of budgetary concerns? As with most other prison issues, there seems to be an underlying notion that we are less than human, and therefore undeserving of a humane level of consideration, compassion, respect, and treatment.

Giving us water and ice helps, but that's clearly not a long-term solution to this problem. Neither are fans, which - to be clear - we must purchase OURSELVES from the Property Department for around $30 dollars each (a price that not every offender can afford). Fans don't magically create cool air: when heat indexes rise to unsafe levels, they simply blow around the same insufferable heat and humidity from which we need protection. How much longer will state corrections departments continue putting Band-Aids on this problem before they accept the fact that surgery is needed? A single inmate death should've been enough for this issue to have been taken seriously. But more than a dozen over the span of a decade is outright unacceptable.