Turn off your air conditioner. Turn your oven on to 300 degrees. Open the oven door. Place several fans in front of the oven door to distribute the heat through your kitchen. Restrict yourself to your kitchen for several hours. And do this in the middle of summer — preferably on a day when the temperature is over 100 degrees outside.

If you do this, you’ll get a sense of what my summers are like. 

In my prison, about 90 minutes north of Austin, it is often over 100 degrees outside. There’s no air conditioning in the living units, so we rely on less effective measures like fans or opening small windows to cool us down. But fans only blow hot air around, and opening up windows to scorching outside temperatures doesn’t help much either. This feels like being baked in an oven, as I’ve written about before.

In the summer, I constantly sweat, which makes me dehydrated. Then I feel dizzy. I wet my clothing, including my underwear, to stay cool. But my clothes dry in a matter of minutes. My electronic tablet stops working because it is too hot, which means I lose one of my best distractions from the heat. The three coolers filled with ice water empty quickly, because there are over 100 overheated, thirsty inmates in my dorm. Refills on the igloos can take as long as four hours. 

My prison is without air conditioning. Only about one-third of Texas prison living units are fully air-conditioned. Research indicates it’s likely a few people die every year from heat-related illness in Texas state prisons — the state rarely officially attributes heat as a cause of death. 

But relief is supposed to be on the way. The legislature has approved a plan to install air conditioning in all prison living units by 2032, and $118 million in funding has been allocated to install air conditioning for 18,000 state prison beds. 

I interviewed people at our prison to hear what challenges they have faced on hot days, and what they think about the long-term plan for cooling Texas prisons. Here are some of their comments. 

“The extreme heat temperatures have affected me in many ways. My entire body breaks out in painful hives. I also have a heart condition that limits the amount of water I can drink. So I get dehydrated quickly and easily. The medical staff here overrides orders from licensed medical doctors and gives physician’s assistants free reign to treat inmates as they see fit. Doctor’s orders are ignored. These conditions are inhumane to live in.”  — Wendi Cameron

“I have a stent in my heart. I am on a number of blood pressure medications that are heat sensitive. So the extreme temperatures compound my already chronic medical conditions. This unit does not have air conditioning in every dorm and it is a medical unit. This heat causes daily suffering.” — Shawn Autrey

“I feel like it’s inhumane for inmates to have to deal with the heat. The heat has affected my sleeping patterns, and I’ve also had difficulty breathing.” — J. Maddox

“The heat has caused me to have many more seizures than would have normally occurred. The heat has also made me dizzy and disoriented. I also don’t believe nothing about this air getting put on by 2032. It just ain’t going to happen.” — Christine Mack

“They make laws and give themselves time extensions so that they never have to actually do anything. I don’t think we will have air conditioning in all Texas prisons, ever. Simple as that.” — Shameka Smith

“After taking lithium for over 20 years, much of it in extreme heat, I believe heat has contributed to decreased kidney functions. I am extremely skeptical of what the legislature says.” — Charlsie Amanda Bolton