The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has asked state lawmakers for $298 million over the next two years to add more than 15,700 air-conditioned beds, The Texas Tribune reported. The agency also requested $591.8 million to build climate-controlled expansion dorms and says the two requests together would add more than 21,000 cool beds.
The request covers only part of the problem. The agency estimates that cooling every prison would cost about $1.5 billion, and nearly two-thirds of Texas' 104 prisons are not fully air-conditioned, according to agency figures. Indoor summer temperatures in many units routinely top 100 degrees, and U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, who is overseeing a lawsuit over prison heat, has previously called the conditions "plainly unconstitutional."
