Pressure mounts on Texas to address brutal heat crisis in prison cells

Protesters gather outside the Texas state capitol building in Austin, Texas, on 18 July 2023, to advocate for cooling Texas prisons. Photograph: Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Protesters gather outside the Texas state capitol building in Austin, Texas, on 18 July 2023, to advocate for cooling Texas prisons. Photograph: Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images Pressure mounts on Texas to address brutal heat crisis in prison cells State hit by new wrongful death lawsuit by family of Jason Wilson, who died in ‘brutally hot, un-airconditioned’ cell Texas, the state with the largest prison population in the US, is coming under mounting legal pressure to address the ongoing crisis of brutal heat in its cells, as extreme summer temperatures expose inmates to suffering, illness and even death. The Texas department of criminal justice (TDCJ), the state agency that runs dozens of prisons, has been hit by a new wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Jason Wilson. The inmate was found dead in his solitary confinement cell at the Coffield unit in July 2024. The family’s civil complaint , lodged in a federal district court in Houston, accuses the state of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on the prisoner “that led to his death in a brutally hot, un-airconditioned cell”. Refusal to provide Wilson with cool water and regular showers, combined with the lack of air conditioning and a failure to check routinely on his wellbeing, “caused him immense suffering and death”. Jason Wilson in an undated photograph provided by his family. Photograph: Family of Jason Wilson His plight was the result of “deliberate indifference” and “intentional discrimination” on the part of the Texas authorities, the suit says. The new wrongful death lawsuit comes as Texas is already awaiting the outcome of a separate federal court action in Austin over the heat crisis. An alliance of advocacy groups is calling on a federal judge in the western district of Texas to order the state to introduce air conditioning in all its prisons over the next three years. A ruling in that case is expected within months. The legal crunch is coming to a head just as searing summer heat yet again pummels Texas prisons. Of the state’s 141,000 prisoners, more than 85,000 are held in cells without air conditioning where internal temperatures regularly exceed 115F (46C) in summer months. A high of 149F has been recorded. At such extremes, individual inmates can experience physical and mental breakdown , and those who are particularly vulnerable as a result of co-morbidities can suffer fatal heatstrokes. Desperate inmates have been known to spill dirty toilet water on the concrete floors of their cells and lie in it in an attempt to cool off. TDCJ has accepted that there were three heat-related deaths in its prisons in 2023, but has denied any such fatalities since then. One of the three deceased inmates, Patrick Womack, 50, was found unresponsive in his cell in August 2023 with a core body t