Are Texas Prison Inmates Really Being “Cooked” To Death?

Prison inmates in Texas are often locked in cells without air conditioning and temperatures inside the jails are getting higher and higher.

Texas saw some insane temperature records set amidst very long stretches of triple digit days last summer and 2024 is predicted to be just as hot, if not even hotter than 2023 was.

That is very bad news for many, (most, really), Texas prison inmates.

USA Today reported that 70% of TDCJ prisons don't have air conditioning and that temperatures inside them often top 100 degrees. They also referenced a 2022 study by the JAMA Network that found about 13% of deaths in Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019 were heat related.

USA Today added that only one state, Tennessee, has air conditioners in their jails that work everywhere. A few states have air conditioning in "most" of the buildings and at least 44 states don't use air conditioners, (completely anyway), at all.

The department said many of the state's facilities were built before air conditioning was commonly installed, and prisons built in the '80s and '90s didn't have AC because of the cost to install and maintain it. The state has estimated it would cost $1 billion to convert facilities to include air conditioning, and another $140 million yearly for maintenance, though some advocates say those figures are overestimated. - usatoday

The odds are really, really good that 2024 is going to be one of the top 5 hottest years in the history of mankind.  2023 was actually the hottest year ever in Texas with record setting numbers of days over 100 degrees, most topping 105 degrees.