Heat wave: Texas prison officials are murderers
www.workers.org
Houston Prisoners are dying almost every day in Texas due to the extreme heat. They are dying in cells, dorms, fields, factories and kitchens. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has a policy, AD10.64, which says people are allowed to go to “respite” areas if being affected by the hea

The Texas prison system incarcerates 118,277 people in 98 facilities located throughout the state. According to research by Julie Skarha, an environmental epidemiologist from Brown University’s School of Public Health, 271 prisoners died of heat-related causes in non air-conditioned Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019. (Texas Prisons Community Advocates Facebook)

Many more suffer from heat exhaustion each year, reporting dizziness, nausea, heat rashes, and muscle cramps. Yet it’s been 11 years since Texas has classified a death as heat-related.

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A post on the Texas Prisons Community Advocates’ Facebook page from the sister of a prisoner at the TDCJ Lucile Plane State Jail read: “So many women are dying here from heat. A 23-year-old died yesterday. She asked the guard for ‘respite’ to go sit in a room with AC for a few minutes. They denied her. Then she tried getting a cold shower but started throwing up and died.

“My dorm waited seven hours for water yesterday. We hardly ever have drinking water. Two women died and laid in their bunks for four hours before medical picked them up. There are over 3,000 women here and not just old women are dying. Young healthy women are also dying from the heat.”