Federal judge weighs mandating air conditioning in Texas prison system | CNN

A decision whether to mandate air conditioning inside Texas prisons is in the hands of a federal judge, as advocacy organizations try to force the state to address what they allege are dangerous, deadly temperatures inmates endure. For years leading up to the two-week trial in Austin, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice says it has made efforts to mitigate heat inside its prisons during the summer months. However, inmates’ advocates and lawyers say those efforts haven’t gone far enough: Temperatures can reach 149 degrees, they say, and the conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment – violating inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights. “There is a dangerous condition that everybody in the leadership knows about: It’s extreme heat inside the prison system,” Jeff Edwards, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, told CNN. “What they’re doing is not solving it, it’s not mitigating it. It’s killing people.” The plaintiffs – a group of advocacy organizations that represent inmates – are requesting air-conditioning be installed in every inmate housing area in every state-run prison. They claim more than 270 people died in Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019 d