Getting Texas prisons air conditioned has never gotten this far in the Texas legislature
The house last week overwhelmingly passed a bi-partisan bill that would require Texas prisons be air conditioned over a seven year span, but only if lawmakers allocate the funds.
Casey Phillips started the group Texas Prisons Air Conditioning advocates because of her husband. She says he was diagnosed with kidney disease five years ago, around the time he was sentenced to five years in prison.
She says he was incarcerated in temperatures as extreme as 120 to 130 degrees in 2017 and 2018 and didn't get the care he needs. He was recently released, but now she says he is dying.
She notes the Texas prison system has an air conditioned pig barn but the vast majority of inmates swelter in the summer. "I don't understand how most of these people sleep at night knowing how much torture they are putting other human beings through. Regardless of what someone did, it doesn't matter what they did. They are still a human being."
She adds "it's about time legislators opening their eyes and see how bad it is and are considering the fact that these are humans. We cannot treat people this way."
About 70 percent of the state's nearly 100 lockups do not have AC in living areas.
Court records and autopsy reports show that at least 13 inmates have died of heat stroke in Texas over the last ten years.
