Sweltering heat has killed inmates, driven away prison workers and cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits. The House budget would provide air conditioning for 46 prisons, but it’s unclear if the Senate will sign on.
The Texas House last week committed to spend $545 million to install air conditioning in many of the state’s dangerously hot prisons.
It’s a historic win for prison rights’ advocates, who have long fought to cool prisons in a state where the relentless Texas heat has baked prisoners to death, likely contributed to severe staff shortages and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in wrongful death and civil rights lawsuits. More than two-thirds of Texas’ 100 prisons don’t have air conditioning in most living areas, forcing thousands of prison officers and tens of thousands of prisoners to work and live in stifling temperatures.
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