Inmates in Texas state prisons are being "cooked alive" by scorching temperatures in facilities without air conditioning, a new investigation claims. Documents obtained by The Texas Newsroom, a public radio collaboration of multiple Texas stations, showed that even as inmates died with body temperatures nearing 107 degrees, officials have continued to blame their deaths on causes other than extreme heat.
In 2023, a Texas prisoner filed a lawsuit challenging the state's refusal to adequately control heat levels. The suit alleged that the state was violating its own laws surrounding prison temperatures, as well as violating inmates' Eighth Amendment rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
"For many years now, the extreme heat has wreaked havoc on Texas's prisons, coinciding with a dramatic increase in illnesses and deaths. And as temperatures increase with global climate change, the problem is only getting worse. Last summer was the second hottest on record in Texas, with some [Texas Department of Criminal Justice] units reaching an astonishing 149 [degrees] Fahrenheit," reads an amended complaint filed in April. "Extreme heat in Texas's unairconditioned prisons caused or contributed to an average of 14 deaths per year from 2001 to 2019."
Only about 30 percent of Texas prisons are fully air-conditioned. While state law mandates that prison temperatures be kept between 65 degrees and 85 degrees, at dozens of state prisons, daily high temperatures topped that. At one prison, Garza West Unit, temperatures stayed above 100 degrees for 11 days straight in the summer of 2023.
This week, The Texas Newsroom published a series of documents obtained in connection with the suit. The report detailed the circumstances of several inmate deaths, in which state officials admitted that extreme heat may have played a role—but wasn't a direct cause.
One 50-year-old inmate died with a core body temperature of 106.9 degrees, and another 32-year-old prisoner died with a 107.5 body temperature. Elizabeth Hagerty, 37, died in June of last year after complaining of a heat rash and gastrointestinal issues. At the time of her death, the temperature in her cell was over 95 degrees.
"[The Texas Department of Criminal Justice] does not count those deaths as heat deaths because the primary cause of death was due to other reasons such as underlying medical disorders, overdoses, etc.," a TDCJ spokesperson told The Texas Newsroom.
However, not everyone agrees.
"To suggest to the community, to the citizens of Texas, that the heat is not killing people in the Texas prison system is an absolute falsehood," said Jeff Edwards, the plaintiff's lead lawyer, told The Texas Newsroom. "It's outrageous, it's wrong and that's what our case is all about."
By refusing to install adequate heat-control systems, Texas officials aren't just imprisoning their inmates—they're subjecting them to obviously cruel conditions. A prison sentence shouldn't also mean enduring life-threatening heat.
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