Posted on 08/16/2016 11:46:38 AM PDT by massmike
In places like Louisiana and Texas, sweltering states where elected officials cherish tough-on-crime credentials, it is politically poisonous to be perceived as coddling prisoners. And many officials simply say that temperatures are not anywhere near as dire as prisoners and their lawyers claim.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which is facing an array of lawsuits over the issue of jail temperatures, including a class-action case, said in a statement that “the well-being of staff and offenders is a top priority for the agency and we remain committed to making sure that both are safe during the extreme heat.”
The disputes surrounding the climate of modern incarceration can be partly traced to 1981, when the Supreme Court concluded that “the Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons.” About 35 years later, states, counties and cities are interpreting the court’s words in their own ways.
In Texas, state regulations require that temperatures in county jails “shall be reasonably maintained between 65 degrees Fahrenheit and 85 degrees Fahrenheit in all occupied areas.” But that standard does not apply to state prisons.
“Once these buildings heat up in the summertime, they never really do ever cool back down again,” Keith M. Cole, a plaintiff in the Texas class-action case, said at the Navasota prison where he is serving a life sentence for murder and is being treated for heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. “Air-conditioning to me wouldn’t be a comfort. It’s a necessity — it’s a medical necessity.”
“In the South, almost everybody has air-conditioning,” said Jeffrey S. Edwards, a lawyer for Mr. Cole. “This isn’t a luxury anymore. Almost everyone has it, except for these inmates.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Probably should consider doing their crimes in a Northern East Coast or West Coast state where coddling of criminals is the socially accepted norm.
Made a few of those in my day. They worked real well.
Now I get to deal with my wife going through chemo and needing the temp set at 74. we live in Georgia.
Joe Arpio has a better plan............TENT CITY (in Phoenix, AZ) Love that Sheriff.
Oh boo frickin’ hoo.
You brought back some funny childhood memories. Traveling around Alabama with my family when I was a child, there were chain gangs on most federal and state highways. The prisoners singing with their sling blades, the guards on horses with shotguns always scared me, and my brother would threaten to throw me out of the window!
Air-Conditioning causes Global Warming , remove it from ALL GOVERNMENT ,that includes their Cars
Why do I have to solve everything? Buy surplus slightly dated air conditioners that won’t sell from the manufacturer. Just buy the equipment. Offer the inmates classes on installation and maintenance.
Point at the boxes on the parking lot and tell them to learn how they work and install them. Tell them if they break you will get them repair parts. And there are so many Mexicans in Texas prisons they are guaranteed to have experience in that field.
Have a kill switch in the Wardens office. Any fight or crime of violence, it turns off for a week.
Free behavior modification, and maybe a job skill and learning a little responsibility.
Funny, it worked just fine in my grandmas house when I was little in humid central Texas. It worked fine in my house too. And there are many prisons in west Texas and the conditions are perfect there, even optimal.
Today it is 90 degrees in Lubbock, on down through Odessa. There are a several prisons in that area. Humidity is 24% today. This is the center of the optimal performance zone on a swamp cooler and it could easily keep things at 72 degrees.
Loses effectiveness at 50%, but even then it’ll lower things 10 or 12 degrees. But yes, in well over half of Texas, it is a viable option.
I’m a Texan who grew up without A/C at home or in school in the 70s. Four generations have lived in this house which didn’t get A/C until ‘95. Heck, the A/C is off today and the windows are open.
Whaaa, big whiney babies. If they can’t stand the heat, stay out of the prison kitchen. Go do your crimes in more moderate climates. Half my relatives work/retired at TDCJ and they aren’t crying.
“Air conditioning” in prison should be parlance for “hard labor outdoors.”
I grew up in Iowa in the mid-30’s to the early 50’s where it was really hot in July, August and we did not have air conditioning. I do not feel sorry for the inmates.
I grew up in the ‘40s-’50s in Dallas TX. Public schools had open windows and ceiling fans in the hot weather and we kids played all types of sports outside during P.E. (remember when schools had P.E.?)
Our 800 sq.ft. house didn’t even have a swamp pump until about ‘53. We used a small exhaust fan in a North window to pull a draft through the house from an open South window.
After supper, neighbors would gather in the yard on the East side of our house with lawn chairs, blankets for kids, ice chests for drinks or watermelon. We would all be out there until about 10-11pm, just to allow the houses to cool down enough to go to bed. ....There was a major heat problem and drought there in the early ‘50s.
We hadn’t committed any crimes deserving punishment. We survived.
I feel no empathy for those who were convicted of crimes that resulted in them being in State prisons. I’m sure the prisons have fans.
I know that years’ ago, the Texas prisoners had to work the farmlands on the prison grounds, from which food was provided to feed the prisoners and sell to local markets. Those prisoners weren’t so pansy as to be filing class action suits.
After my folks got a swamp pump in the early ‘50s, the moisture in the air caused mildew to grow and then we had to fight that with bleach and repainting (with lead-based paint then, of course).
Forgot to say that your home page is great!
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