Justice
For Inmates in Texas Prisons, Extreme Heat Is Its Own Death Sentence
Fourteen prisoners have died from heat-related causes since 2007. Is anything being done about it?
Sarah Kendrick started work as a corrections officer at the Clemens Unit prison in Brazoria County, Texas, in July 1998—the height of summer. She was posted in the cell block and the laundry room. With no air conditioning, the high temperatures everywhere in the building were excruciating.
"When you walk in that building, the cement, the metal, and the brick all work to hold it together—like an incubator," she says. "It was not a good situation to ever be in." The temperature would go well above 100 degrees, she remembers. Complaints had little effect because of prison's "get back to work, or get out" attitude, she says. And for her—a single mom with two kids—leaving wasn't an option then.