Posted on 02/02/2007 8:03:43 PM PST by Mr. Brightside
Inmates demand air conditioning
Thursday, February 01, 2007
By Pat Shellenbarger
The Grand Rapids Press
KALAMAZOO -- The temperature outside was dipping toward the lowest this winter Wednesday, but inside the courtroom, the concern was about summer heat -- the kind that can kill.
Attorneys representing Jackson prison inmates want U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen to order the state to air condition cell blocks where sick inmates, particularly those susceptible to heat-related illnesses, are housed.
On Wednesday, the state Corrections Department, through an assistant attorney general, agreed to install equipment that will lower the temperature in one area by mid-July.
That's where 21-year-old inmate Timothy Joe Souders died of dehydration after he was shackled to a cement bed for most of four days during a heat wave last August.
Under the agreement signed by attorneys for the state and the inmates, the Corrections Department will assure that the heat index -- a combination of temperature and humidity -- in the segregation unit will not exceed 90 degrees. During the time Souders was shackled, the heat index climbed to 108 degrees, an attorney for the inmates said.
While a maximum heat index of 90 degrees is uncomfortable, it could save lives, said Elizabeth Alexander, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project.
"This is not about comfort," she said. "It's about protecting peoples' lives. It's air conditioning to what will still be a hot, uncomfortable temperature, but not a deadly temperature."
While Alexander said she understood the Corrections Department would air condition the segregation unit, Assistant Attorney General Peter Govorchin said it planned to lower the heat index by dehumidifying the air.
But the Corrections Department continues to resist demands to air condition other cell blocks in the southern Michigan Correctional Facility. An engineering firm hired by the state a year ago estimated it would cost $11.5 million to air condition the cell blocks, but an engineer who testified for the inmates Wednesday proposed a different system that would cost about $4.9 million.
Instead, the state is proposing to apply film to cell block windows to filter out some sunlight and is working on other ways to lower the temperature during summer heat waves, Govorchin said.
On hot days, the air blowing out of vents in each cell actually raises the temperature, inmate Clarence "Pepper" Moore testified.
"When we were single-celled, it was bearable," said Moore, 64, who said he has diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer, "but now that we're double-bunked" -- since about 2003 -- "it's almost unbearable. Several prisoners sleep on the floor to stay cool."
Unless the state takes steps to keep the heat index below 90 degrees in areas where ill inmates are housed "there'll be many deaths," predicted Dr. Jerry Walden, an Ann Arbor physician called as an expert witness for the inmates.
The hearing, scheduled to resume today, is part of a long-running class-action lawsuit dealing with the medical and mental health-care of inmates in the Jackson facilities.
Obviously, if he died of dehydration and was chained to a bed for 4 days, he didn't get enough water.
Now, I'm not saying we should air condition the blocks to a comfy 72 degrees; but chaining someone up in the heat and letting them die is a bit harsh.
What we have here is a failure to communicate-- come on, what'd you do?
Got drunk and hit someone in the head with a wine bottle (no, I didn’t cut off parking meter heads), in the middle of the street with a cop standing on the corner? Never said I was very smart!!!
Just willing to learn …
If they ignor the conditions one can only assume "many deaths" is the goal.
Doc I think a person of 50'sh and was born in the south might understand what you speak of. My family line comes from the Texas/Arkansas.., then of course back to England/Scotland/Ireland/France with Cherokee/Sioux also.
But remember those internments were of Civil War era, or built on the same models
Oh BTW, high quality bologna is really good! I buy about 3/4 a pound of it every few weeks lately for sandwich.., uuhhm
I agree with you, any internment is a place to stay away from
You know what was really bizarre with that movie, was the music from it was used as a theme song for Eyewitness news for years, at least here in New York. When I first saw Cool hand luke I thought someone had screwed around with the sound, I couldn`t understand why they were using a news theme song in it. It was only later that the opposite happened, Eyewitness news had taken the music from the movie.
Here, check it out...I found an example on Youtube. Even the LA news used it. How cheap can they be to cop a theme song from a movie! lol!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfxR-gS3LbQ
The Michigan Department of Corrections really screwed the pooch on this one. This guy was according to news reports a semi-retaded guy who became a petty criminal. He was probably off his meds, the guards did not want to deal with him so they chained him to a table to die. (I'm just going by what I recall and may not have the story 100%.)
I place the blame on his family for not dealing with his problems, even if it would cause a great sacrifice on their part, and just pawning him off on the prison system / taxpayers.
That's pretty funny.
If you are sick, and are dehydrated; having an ambient temperature above 90 degrees isn't going to do you any good. Having a fever, in addition to a hot room is not going to help your body cool down. One could argue that a high fever could become permanently debilitating or fatal; if the patient is not allowed to cool himself. If you are chained to a bed, you can't douse yourself with lukewarm water, you can't get a drink, and if it's hot you are certainly going to need more water than if it's cool.
I'm not saying that this person was a saint, nor that he didn't deserve every day he was sentenced to. But, to die of dehydration in an uncooled infirmary is a bit extreme. The article doesn't say that they are going to cool every room in the penetentiary; but I can see the logic in keeping the hospital ward at a comfortable temperature.
The solution would have been to take care of him and correct the mistreatment, not air-condition the prison so they can be comfortable and still neglect and mistreat them.
Besides, I thought dying from starvation and dehydration was such a nice, peaceful way to go. If it's good enough for Terri... The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
Most of the public schools here in Hardin County, Kentucky don't have air conditioning. And it's usually on the fritz in those schools that do have it.
When a properly installed heating and ventilation system is available, adding air conditioning is not that big of a deal. It usually comes part and parcel, hence the term HVAC. I can't imagine a large complex of any kind without it simply because of the need for fresh air.
Again, I think the cause of the guys death was neglect, not the heat.
Maybe it was those two variables together that were lethal.
For instance if a baby gets forgot & left in the backseat of a car on a 60 degree day in April, it wont have the same consequence as the same event on a day that gets much hotter very fast in August.
I don't know why, but this causes a memory to return..,
Indians are stereotyped as very smart but not much common sense and it plays out sometimes.
I knew a very smart accomplished Indian couple who almost drove off with their new son on the roof of the car, another time they actually forgot him and came back to find him on the top of another car they had parked beside of.
Wolf
I've noticed in my own family that intelligence and common sense to not necessarily go hand in hand. *sigh*
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