| Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the future of climate policy. But the country is grappling with extreme weather now — and people in prison are among the most vulnerable, researchers and advocates say. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the developed world, with 1.9 million people behind bars. Some are in prisons and jails that don’t have air conditioning, even as temperatures around the country break records. A new lawsuit argues that the heat conditions in the Texas state prison system — the nation’s largest — constitute cruel and unusual punishment, writes Mike Lee. Seventy percent of the cells in the state’s prisons lack air conditioning. Heat kills more people in the United States than any other climate-related hazard. A record number of people in the U.S. died from heat-related causes in 2023, according to an Associated Press analysis. Researchers found that the heat index inside many of Texas’ 100 prison buildings can exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit. As the country continues to heat up, the unsafe conditions are only expected to worsen. A federal judge in Austin will decide whether to grant relief to the state’s 123,000 incarcerated people after a four-day hearing that ended earlier this month. But Texas isn’t the only state affected. After Texas, people imprisoned in Florida are the most exposed to extreme heat, followed by Arizona and Louisiana, researchers found in a recent paper. The paper, published by scholars at Columbia University, Montana State University and other schools, calculated the number of jails and prisons in which temperatures exceeded the level that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health considers dangerous for workers. Between 1982 and 2020, the number of unsafe days increased at nearly half the country’s prisons and jails. More than 100 prisons and jails — in largely Texas, Florida, Arizona and southern California — experienced an average 75 days or more per year of extreme heat between 2016 and 2020. In addition to extreme heat, other climate-fueled extremes are on the rise. In fact, 99 percent of the population has received an extreme weather alert since the start of May, according to National Weather Service data interpreted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a climate nonprofit.
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