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At least 41 prisoners have died of heart-related or undetermined causes since the unrelenting heat wave began

Most Texas prisons lack air conditioning. At least 41 prisoners have died of heart-related or undetermined causes since the unrelenting heat wave began.

Management & Training Corporation had been accused of defrauding the state by charging for services it didn’t provide and directing prisoners to falsify paperwork about their treatment.

Since a heat wave gripped Texas, at least nine inmates, including two men in their 30s, have died of heart attacks or unknown causes in prisons lacking air conditioning. It’s been 11 years since the state last classified a death as heat-related.

The United States locks people in isolation even though it causes severe psychological damage that can last a lifetime.

Probation and parole systems remain understaffed and buggy in Texas, causing people to fall through the cracks and land in prison.

For more than a decade, Texas has been trying to slim down its youth prison system, which has been plagued by years of abuse scandals. This Legislature is reversing that course.

Stifling heat has killed inmates and exacerbated employee turnover in Texas prisons. But funding for air conditioning was whittled down in the draft budget released Thursday.

“They didn’t try to fix the brokenness,” his mother says. “They just broke him more.”