As scorching temperatures continue across the US during these summer months, families of those in Texas prisons – alongside lawmakers – are advocating for air conditioning to be installed in more than five dozen prisons so those incarcerated don’t sweat to death.
In July and August, temperatures inside these prisons can easily surpass 100F, leaving people like Jonathan to wonder what this year’s hottest months will look like for his wife, who calls him almost every day from the Lane Murray Unit, a women’s prison in Gatesville, Texas.
Jonathan, whose name has been changed for fear his wife may be punished for his advocacy, and his wife often discuss the conditions inside the prison. Once, the water main broke, leaving the women without water for eight hours. When it finally came back, the water remained unsafe to drink – but the women weren’t told that. There was another time some of the prisoners with respiratory trouble were denied oxygen tanks, even as summer temperatures rose.
Most recently, those rising temperatures have made Jonathan and his wife even more worried. The Lane Murray Unit is one of the 69 Texas prisons that is not fully air-conditioned (including 14 with no AC in housing areas) despite years of advocacy from loved ones and lawmakers.
During a scorching 2023 heatwave across the state, at least 41 people died behind bars. One of them, 37-year-old Elizabeth Hagerty, was incarcerated at Lane Murray.
“I totally understand having to serve your sentence,” said Jonathan. “She’s not serving a death sentence, though. That’s what this feels like right now.”
Recently, advocates, families and their few legislative advocates got close to mandating air conditioning systems in all prisons by 2032.
Representative Terry Canales’ House Bill 3006 called for AC units that maintain 65 to 85F in key areas, including medical units and the dorms where people sleep. It was essentially the same legislation he filed in 2023 and 2024, and for each of the last three years, the bill has passed in the House with widespread bipartisan support – then died in the Senate.
This time, Amite Dominick, the founder and president of the Texas Prisons Community Advocates, says Lt Gov Dan Patrick effectively held the bill hostage.
“I do not believe that Lieutenant Governor Patrick wants air conditioning in the Texas prisons,” Dominick said.
Patrick’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
A similar bill filed by Texas state senator José Menéndez was referred to the Senate finance committee, but never received a hearing from senator Joan Huffman, the committee chair.
In response to questions from the Guardian, Huffman said that a separate bill includes $118m intended to add 11,000 air-conditioned beds in Texas prisons.
But there’s an important nuance here: these funds are earmarked not for retrofitting existing prison cells, but for building new dormitories with air conditioning – in effect expanding the prison system’s capacity rather than improving current conditions.
The $118m is not mentioned in the text of the appropriations bill Huffman’s office highlighted, and the TDCJ did not respond to questions or confirmation about the official text of their appropriations request.
“Right now, approximately 88,882 humans are being tortured in our Texas prisons,” Dominick said, referring to the number of people living in the facilities that are not fully air-conditioned.
“Given the extremity of the situation, the legislators are only offering to put in a miniscule amount of installation of cool beds over the next biennium, which essentially Texas will likely continue to torture its incarcerated citizens over the next 30 years in such a manner unless legislators such as Senator Huffman decide to quote ‘give a damn’. How many needless deaths will be happening during that duration of time where the state drags their feet?”
That apathy is a constant thorn in Dominick’s side, who laments that Texas still maintains a “hang ‘em high” culture when it comes to criminal justice and incarceration. She’s been a core part of the air conditioning fight for many years, and even when temps aren’t sweltering, she works with a small team and families of incarcerated people to diligently document everything from persistent mold to unduly harsh treatment by corrections officers and medical staff.
Yet every summer, due in large part to the heat made worse by global warming, Dominick and her team find themselves coping with an influx of grievances about the temps inside prisons.
This summer hasn’t seen its worst days yet, but the recent tariffs on China have complicated the team’s plans to secure and provide enough cooling towels, which can be critical on triple-digit days. Those towels are manufactured in China, and the organization is now struggling to find affordable alternatives or secure donations directly from manufacturers.
A 2022 Jama Network Open study, analyzing mortality data from 2001 to 2019, confirms that people in prisons without air conditioning are more likely to die during extreme heat. Each one-degree increase above 85F spiked mortality by 0.7% in facilities that aren’t fully air-conditioned. Further, extreme-heat days accounted for an average of 271 total deaths during that 18-year span – about 15 per year. Conversely, prisons with functioning AC showed no significant increase in mortality during those extreme-heat days.
The chief obstacle facing Dominick and the families she helps are legislators’ concerns about cost. But she points to the widespread support for recent legislation as proof that there’s “enough political will” to get this done.
“There is a substantial amount of money that is associated with this,” she conceded. “However, Texas does have the money. We had the money in our basic budget, and we have the money in our rainy day funds.”
The appropriations mentioned by Huffman, including $300m for facilities expansion, indicate Dominick is correct. And while Texas officials have previously claimed the cost to fully air-condition all remaining facilities could be as much as $1bn, other estimates put the cost closer to $13m per prison.
With bills continuing to fail, families’ best hope may be to take the Texas prison system to court. Just last month, the families of three Texans – Hagerty, Jon Southards and John Skinner – filed a federal wrongful–death lawsuit after the 2023 heat wave claimed their lives inside uncooled state prisons.
Southards’ mother recently recounted how her son complained of heat rash and contaminated drinking water from his cell’s sink before collapsing; he died with a core body temperature above 107F.
The family is now suing the TDCJ and the Texas board of criminal justice, alleging the state knowingly exposed vulnerable individuals to life-threatening temperatures. In fact, a federal judge previously said those conditions are “plainly unconstitutional”, but stopped short of ordering immediate installation of AC.
While they wait to see how the suit and future advocacy plays out, people like Jonathan will spend more sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones.
“I visited her just last week,” Jonathan said, “and even in the visitors’ room, it sounded like the AC was having to work overtime.”
It sounded, he said, “like it was failing”.
