From "How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?" (The New Yorker).
August 22, 2023
"Scandalously... seventy per cent of the state’s prisons do not have air-conditioning in living areas. The temperature inside those enclosed, often windowless spaces..."
"... can be higher than it is outdoors—a carceral heat dome. Earlier this year, a measure to install air-conditioning passed in the Texas House, only to die in the state Senate, despite the fact that the state has a budget surplus. The state has instead dealt with the issue haphazardly, mostly by shuffling the elderly incarcerated to detention centers that are air-conditioned, and, supposedly, by distributing water. Inmates and their advocates have compared the conditions to torture. The Texas Tribune reported that in the past few weeks there has been an unusual spate of prisoners dying of cardiac arrest or of undetermined causes. One of them had been mowing grass outside; he was thirty-five years old...."
From "How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?" (The New Yorker).
From "How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?" (The New Yorker).
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77 comments:
Prisons in Texas have never had air conditioning while Texas has always had hot summers. Do they have good ventilation? If not, that should be fixed, but I can’t get worked up about providing an expensive, relatively new technology to criminals.
And, BTW, what happened to air conditioning contributes to global warming? Is that just for the law-abiding proles?
Double denial! Wow!
- How many thousands of years did humans survive prison (and ordinary life) without A/C? Even in Texas and the tropics.
- How did young people survive hot summers without sudden heart failure before the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named hit the scene just a few years ago?
The logical analyses are very obvious. Too much denial and bubble-think here.
If'n I lived in Tex-ass I'ma' guessing that I'd be making a concerted effort to stay out of the hoosegow. Now mind you, that's just me. Others may differ.
I used to be the type of law-and-order person that wanted criminals in jail but also cared about civic responsibilities we have to the incarcerated. Now I'm the type of law-and-order person that couldn't give two shits. After seeing the last 10 years my heart has totally hardened. I could give a rat's ass how uncomfortable prison is or how much convicts suffer when they shuffle off the mortal coil.
We are now living in a society where the rights of the law-abiding are being subordinated to the rights of scumbags. As far as I'm concerned scumbags can suffer in 110 degree heat and worse for all I care.
Yet more agitprop from The New Yorker. What's the point of fisking this stuff anymore?
The blob of self satisfied unknowingness is too vast. There are miniscule social and economic incentives for questioning the blob, and large disincentives. I despair.
"One of them had been mowing grass outside; he was thirty-five years old...."
Wait. I thought the problem was inside the prison.
But yeah. A lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse is going to create a lot of health problems. Might even kill ya.
Are we supposed to care?
I’m more concerned about climate change. We need to spend billions now!
A few questions: 1) What does an inmate dying while mowing the grass have to do with A/C? Is the Noo Yawka saying the prison yard should be air conditioned? 2) Texas didn't just start incarcerating prisoners after A/C was invented. How did the convicts survive summer before A/C? Why not investigate and see how Texans coped for say, the 1000 years before A/C was invented? 3) This article is just more AGW drama, isn't it. Has it never been hot before in August in the South? I was born in 1945 and remember as a child playing outside in the South and attending school in non-A/C classrooms when the ambient temperature outside was over 100. In fact, as I recall, practically no building had A/C before around 1960. I guess it was a miracle that I made it.
--- ...in the past few weeks there has been an unusual spate of prisoners dying of cardiac arrest or of undetermined causes. One of them had been mowing grass outside; he was thirty-five years old...
Does Texas vaccinate its prisoners?
Inmates and their advocates have compared the conditions to torture.
Let’s keep in mind that at one time they had an option not to commit the crime(s) that put them in prison,
The Texas Tribune reported that in the past few weeks there has been an unusual spate of prisoners dying of cardiac arrest or of undetermined causes. One of them had been mowing grass outside; he was thirty-five years old....
Myocarditis is a known side effect of mRNA vaccines.
The President has been bribed. He fell asleep at a public event in HI. Our country is being invaded. And this is what we are supposed to be worried about?
I'm of the firm belief that anything that The New Yorker, NYT and WaPo are for, them I'm against it as it is bad for America.
I thought killing off American’s air conditioning was Rule #1 for the Gates - Soros dictatorship that claims to control the Sun.
How did prisons do air conditioning BEFORE air conditioning was invented by Willis Carrier in the early 1900s?
They didn't, that's how.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. One of the unpleasant side effects of living a life of criminality is the loss of everyday luxury. So life right.
How did prisons do air conditioning BEFORE air conditioning was invented by Willis Carrier in the early 1900s?
They didn't, that's how.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. One of the unpleasant side effects of living a life of criminality is the loss of everyday luxury. So life right.
I thought killing off American’s air conditioning was Rule #1 for the Gates - Soros dictatorship that claims to control the Sun.
@traditionalguy, only for the law-abiding.
I visited a prisoner in a California state prison (writing about his wrongful conviction) on Saturday. The area where the prison is regularly gets to 100 degrees, and of course there's no air conditioning in the dorms. Instead, there are giant fans that blow, three at once, at a decibel level, when you're near them, approaching a jet. Try sleeping with that 20 feet away.
To be fair, each cell in the Yuma Territorial Prison is made from heavy stone with an iron-grated door. When it was over 110 in July, prisoners were probably more comfortable there than in a modern, air-tight Texas facility.
Note to self. Don't go to prison in Texas.
Willis Carrier needs a national monument.
This Floridian says, "and?"
As for that big loud fan, I have slept many nights on the screen porch of a rickety old lake house on a summer night with one of those roaring away. When it's up to 85 at night, and the humidity is 90% plus, it works.
"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. One of the unpleasant side effects of living a life of criminality is the loss of everyday luxury. So life right." -@Buckwheathikes
Yeah, man, it's well known that every single prisoner is absolutely slam-dunk guilty, their crimes all recorded on timestamped video. The investigating officer was the scrupulous Lenny Briscoe and the DA was the squeaky clean Jack McCoy. None of the convicts agreed to a plea for a crime he didn't commit in order to avoid a ten times longer sentence threatened by the overcharging DA, and all of the crimes were violent.
Visit the Yuma Territorial Prison in Arizona and then let’s talk.
White noise, Cassandra.
"I visited a prisoner in a California state prison... the prison ... regularly gets to 100 degrees, and of course there's no air conditioning in the dorms."
The New Yorker is, typically, blind to anything outside the northeast. When pressed they admit California exists.
BUT when points can be scored against Mega MAGA Texas, exceptions will be made. (One suspects they looked hard but could not find a better example in Florida.)
Let us be reminded that this story was confected by the Texas Tribune, so being embellished by the New Yorker, it is agitprop with extra agitprop frosting.
Texas prisoners used to be seen in high summer, dressed in white, working in the field raising their own food. They raised their own meat,too. It was one of the selling points of the prison farm system, which took some of the best, most fertile bottomland. Sure, it's hot in a Texas prison in summer. Sounds like a really good incentive for law-abiding behaviors.
I have a solution: don't break the law in Texas. Wild, I know.
Of course, even if AC were installed in all of the prisons, the Texas grid may not be able to provide the juice necessary to make it work.
Wait, California doesn't have air conditioning in its prisons?
It's OK then!
Yeah, maybe most prisoners are only getting what they deserve. But remember, the justice system is part of government, and there’s no reason to believe it works any better than the rest of government. So a good fraction of those inmates are likely innocent.
Blogger cassandra lite said...there are giant fans that blow, three at once, at a decibel level, when you're near them, approaching a jet. Try sleeping with that 20 feet away.
If you talk to people in the air force, who actually do have to sleep with roaring jets nearby, you’ll find they get used to it pretty quick.
From "How Much Hotter Can Texas Get?" (The New Yorker).
Purely out of curiosity, does Riker’s Island have air conditioning in the spaces where prisoners sleep? How about Attica or Sing Sing?
Wait a minute.. Wait just a doggarned MINUTE!!
Are they saying, that prison might NOT be pleasant? I'm NOT sure i want to go there then!!
Had the 35 year old gotten the jab? The Texas summer heat is worked through by millions. Boys play football in it.
The Georgia county where Trump has been compelled to surrender to, had an inmate die of bedbug bites. I bite you not. That was the state’s medical examiner’s finding. Never mind air conditioning. Just give them a bed free to ticks.
I grew up in Phoenix Arizona. It's pretty hot there, even in May and September. Our grade schools and high schools had swamp coolers. No air conditioning. Hell, now that I think about it, I did summer band classes with no AC as well.
Have no fear; under the New Regime, those places will be "a special place in hell" for people who dare to challenge the Narrative.
The NYT is consistently a repository of concerted dumb-assery and wind-baggery writ large. They should tend to their own garden patch of misery in that blighted area they call a city. To think that their reporters look out the window and discover Texas prison convicts with out the benefits of air-conditioning. Just what is the world coming to?
"If you can't do the time...." - American proverb.
New York is turning to shit and New Yorker wants to talk about Texas prisons.
Smilin' Jack: "So a good fraction of those inmates are likely innocent."
I'm not sure what is "a good fraction", but it is likely that 95+% of them pled guilty. The remainder were convicted by unanimous jury verdicts.
I thought AC contributed to global climate change. Perhaps in the future, prisons will have AC but ordinary people will not.
I would like to know how that 70% of non-air conditioned Living Spaces compares to the other states.
"What does an inmate dying while mowing the grass have to do with A/C?"
Good question, but it does say he "had been mowing the grass." It's possible that he got overheated outdoors then had no way of cooling off but needed to come inside where it was even hotter. Haven't you worked in the yard, gotten very hot, but had access to indoor air conditioning the whole time and could therefore regulate your temperature?
Should send the January 6 folks down there. Might remind them to not do the crime if they aren't willing to do the time.
Can "New Yorker" writers even find Texas on a map ? That should be a requirement before trying to write about something you know nothing about. How many poor live in Texas without AC, for example?
After a year in Vietnam (no A/C, obviously) I spent six months working in an Army barracks building converted to office space at Ft. Hood, TX, with no A/C. The heat didn't stop us from playing volleyball outside every day at noon - but the smell inside afterwards was pretty bad!
Comfort in prisons!
They're meant to be places of punishment so that inmates are reminded that they did something wrong.
“This article is just more AGW drama, isn't it. Has it never been hot before in August in the South?”
Yes - but also pushing an anti-South agenda. NY is hemorrhaging people and businesses moving south to be more free. Also, remember, the left, including the NYT, hate prisons, and their refusal to incarcerate their criminals is why law and order have broken down in progressive bastions across the country. Except that many of those fleeing NY (etc) are asking “So What?” Making criminals pay for their crimes is part of why they are moving south.
We won the first and second world wars and DC had no air conditioning. I suggest those braying about climate change embrace the No AC in DC dictum and urge our betters to show some leadership, some example.
I am pretty anti-crime and not for prisoner rights. However, it is so darn hot down here I can't comprehend living without A/C in a prison.
Tradeoff - Maybe we give them A/C but work them like dogs! Old school, baby!
People say you can judge a society by how it treats children, old people, and animals. Prisoners should be added to that list.
They weren't air conditioning the barracks at Ft. Polk Louisiana in the summer of 1969 when I was going through Basic and AIT infantry training. And it didn't get any better outside. Go out on a field problem for a week and change your fatigues when they mildewed on you.
Of course for the 8,000 or so young men who were being trained as light weapons infantrymen at any one time, at least no one was shooting at you.
I'm not going to bleed much because it's hot in the Huntsville prison complex in Texas. It was hot then, it is hot now, and it will be hot 20 years from now. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
Texas inmate dies while working in Huntsville heat.
I don't know about Texas but in Mississippi we are having an exceptional streak of 100 degree plus days. Hottest August I have ever experienced. However, as a counter to the global warmists, this follows a long stretch of relatively mild Summers.
Denying the reality of the singular nature of the current widespread heat wave by asserting, "It's Summer" is illogical. It's much hotter than normal in many locations due to unusual and temporary meteorological conditions and worthy of observation.
I have made an effort to acclimate and am reasonably comfortable outside in the shade while the thermometer reads 101. Just stay out of the sun unless you are young and physically fit and have water readily available. And if you don't have effective AC or ventilation inside, get it.
Also, most of the people in prison may be dirtbags who deserve what they got, but there are plenty who have none nothing that a lot of the commenters here have done in the past or would do if placed in similar situations.
Our justice system rewards law enforcement for arrests and prosecutors for convictions regardless of fairness or reasonableness or bad intent.
See the Donald John Trump absurdity as an example of how perverted and subject to abuse that system has become.
I'm interested in the qualifier in living areas. What does that mean? In cells? In dining halls? Gymnasia? Everywhere an inmate might be?
"It's possible that he got overheated outdoors then had no way of cooling off but needed to come inside where it was even hotter."
It's possible that he preferred being outside instead of being confined inside so kept working longer than someone not in prison would have.
"People say you can judge a society by how it treats children, old people, and animals. Prisoners should be added to that list."
Disagree. Children, old people, and animals don't have the option to not be children, old people, and animals. Prisoners made a choice to become one. There's no excuse for being cruel, but I'll bet there are people living in the area where the prison is located that don't have A/C. If it's good enough for them...
Yes, it is hot in Texas. Don’t move here if you come from New York. Stay there. Especially if you are considering committing criminal acts. In Texas, we will arrest you in put you in an even hotter jail cell without AC. You’ve been warned. Best to stay in New York.
Run the prisons of wind farms and install all the AC they want.
"People say you can judge a society by how it treats children, old people, and animals. Prisoners should be added to that list."
MalaiseLoungue
Thread Winner.
Move them to Europe
"In fact, as I recall, practically no building had A/C before around 1960. I guess it was a miracle that I made it."
Reminded me how back in the day, movie theaters and bowling alleys advertised that they were airconditioned. They were amongst the few places folks could go to escape the heat.
People say you can judge a society by how it treats children, old people, and animals. Prisoners should be added to that list.
Yeah. Because those four things are exactly the same.
Mark said...
"Should send the January 6 folks down there. Might remind them to not do the crime if they aren't willing to do the time."
Aw, Mark. Thats too good for them. Have them stoke the boilers that run the generators. Right comrade. Ship them to Texas in Stolypin cars with no water. Right comrade Mark.
Yuma, for one, is famously unlivable. I don't see why a prisoner's punishment should vary with the jurisdiction he's convicted under. Though I am also not quite sure how you would charge it.
Jim,
They are not exactly the same, but I agree that they belong, so to speak, in the same tranche. Only I would put animals first. They alone can't grasp the reasons for our cruelty.
I would normally be unconcerned about Texas prison conditions except:
1. The increase in political prosecutions (see Jan 6);
2. The prevalence of coercive plea bargaining replacing trial by jury of your peers;
3. The fact that we now live in a combo 'ham sandwich nation' + banana republic;
4. As mentioned, the prison systems are run by governments which deserves no trust;
5. The loudly spoken desire of the Democrats to criminalize anything with which they disagree.
When a corrupt Democrat-owned judge locks me up for being a deplorable (as desired by people such as Chuck/Rich, Inga, Mark, and the little old lady from Pasadena) I'll want A/C.
People say you can judge a society by how it treats children, old people, and animals.
In Maui the Democrat politicians in charge let children burn to death by the hundreds, and none of them thought to evacuate the Hale Mahaolu Eono senior-living complex. How should we judge the Democrats of Maui?
Gov. Abbott should start loading up the busses with poor, overheated criminals. There's a cool, refreshing sanctuary city in the northeast of the country that would welcome them, I'm sure. They'd fit right in there.
"The temperature inside those enclosed, often windowless spaces can be higher than it is outdoors..."
"Can be"? Can you say "weasel words"? The face of the sun can be entirely obscured by the moon, too. How often (and for how long) those temperatures endured would sure make it easier to discuss the topic. Perhaps someone (maybe a reporter) could look into that?
"A study led by a researcher at Brown, published last year, estimated that, between 2001 and 2019, two hundred and seventy-one deaths in Texas prisons might be attributable to excessive heat."
"Might be"? Do I have to bring up "weasel words" again? So anyway, "might not be" is also on the table, no? Perhaps someone (maybe a reporter) could look into that?
"A 2021 study in The Lancet reckoned that the number of people who died of heat-related causes around the world exceeded three hundred and fifty thousand in 2019 alone."
And yet, The Lancet found it useful to produce THE MOST DISHONEST CLIMATE CHART EVER in order to make death due to cold-related causes look more significant when compared to heat-related deaths than they really are. Perhaps someone (maybe a reporter) could look into that?
A true "Marie Antoinette" moment, I'd say. Hope they liked their cake.
I grew up in Ft. Worth, and none of the private Catholic schools I attended had air conditioning. None. We did have fans.
Acclimation is a helluva thing. You get used to the heat. Screw the inmates.
Mark said...
Should send the January 6 folks down there. Might remind them to not do the crime if they aren't willing to do the time.
What "crime" was that, exactly? as i recall, MOST Jan 6 political prisoners have been convicted of:
Parading without a permit
Mark?
do You know something i don't? What charges HAVE most of them been convicted of? Please help me out
I'm ASSUMING that you still pretend that people should only be punished for charges they've been convicted of.. Don't YOU?
Or have you moved on to: They're GUILTY of ANYTHING *I* WANT them to be guilty of. ????
please clarify
https://www.ntd.com/us-court-of-appeals-strikes-down-use-of-jail-and-probation-for-jan-6-parading-misdemeanor_937270.html
A federal appeals court on Aug. 18 struck down the use of so-called “split sentences” in Jan. 6 cases—imposing both prison and probation for petty-offense misdemeanors such as the often-used charge of “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.”
The appeal involved the conviction of James Leslie Little, 52, of Claremont, North Carolina, on a single count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
Parading is one of the most frequently charged crimes in Jan. 6 cases.
Now, MARK? It's NOT that i'm implying that your a real piece of "work"..
It's that i'm EXPLICITLY STATING it
“piece of work”? You are much too generous.
Dying of cardiac arrest or undetermined causes makes me want to ask, were all the inmates forcibly vaccinated? That seems a more likely root cause than heat stroke, which coroners in Texas are very familiar with and would be able to identify as cause of death pretty easily.
"Parading is one of the most frequently charged crimes in Jan. 6 cases."
Only slightly above, " Mopery with the intent to loiter"
Or. ForComrade Mark. They violated "Article 58".
"Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"What does an inmate dying while mowing the grass have to do with A/C?"
Good question, but it does say he "had been mowing the grass." It's possible that he got overheated outdoors then had no way of cooling off but needed to come inside where it was even hotter. Haven't you worked in the yard, gotten very hot, but had access to indoor air conditioning the whole time and could therefore regulate your temperature?"
I cut the grass during the heat of the summer very frequently. After cutting the grass and losing 2-3 or more pounds of fluids I NEVER go inside the aircon immediately. It is freezing. I sit in the shade, usually in the open door of the garage in a chair with a glass of water. Air conditioning is great, but it is not conducive to death normally. Maybe if you live in a city where you cannot go outside or you will be drive-by shot.
Many, many more people die of the cold.
"- How many thousands of years did humans survive prison (and ordinary life) without A/C? Even in Texas and the tropics."
Which raises the question: how many people died in prisons over thousands of years due to brutal weather extremes (hot and cold), not to mention many other brutalities of prisons?
"I grew up in Ft. Worth, and none of the private Catholic schools I attended had air conditioning. None. We did have fans.
"Acclimation is a helluva thing. You get used to the heat. Screw the inmates."
Are you stating for the record that private Catholic schools are rife with brutal conditions comparable to prisons? (Your callous "screw the inmates" comment tells me the Word of Jesus was not conveyed to you in the private Catholic schools...or it just didn't take.)
Not mentioned is that the prison staff is in the same environment as the prisoners. And I doubt the building and its kitchens are airtight. People tight, yes, but not airtight.
A coal fired ship was worse, and oil fuel only made it slightly better in the engine spaces, especially in a place like the South Pacific at general quarters.
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