AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- As the summer heats up, some of the Texas' nearly 90,000 inmates living in uncooled prisons are begging for relief. Reports of dehydration, heat rash, and desperate attempts to cool down with toilet water accentuate years-long demands to air-condition the state's prison system.
"I will never forget the inmate who was drinking from a toilet last summer because the ice cooler was without water and ice all day," one inmate at TDCJ's Coffield Unit wrote in a letter to KXAN last month. "My life is in great danger... I plead with Mother Nature for relief to survive."
"We are being stuck in the day room with no running water and it's starting to get hot," another Coffield inmate wrote. "(Staff) say you have a normal heat rash when your face and whole body look as if you got into a bee fight."
TDCJ tells Nexstar eight inmates and 10 staff members have had heat-related illnesses this year. They say their heat protocol measures are effective and include water coolers, fans, respite areas, and "heat sensitivity scores" for at-risk inmates.
Experts and advocates expect the department's reports of heat injuries and deaths underestimate the severity of the problem.
Texas Prison Community Advocates filed a lawsuit against TDCJ to mandate air conditioning at all TDCJ facilities. The group has its first hearing in Travis County court on July 30.
"Everybody knows at this point that people are literally dying in our prisons because of these extreme temperatures in one form or another," Dr. Amite Dominick with Texas Prison Community Advocates said. Her 2022 study found 13% of deaths in Texas prisons during summer months may be attributable to extreme heat -- even though TDCJ does not classify deaths as heat-related, and hasn't since 2011.
"I think those (heat injury and death reports) are low," she said. "Those numbers have historically been low throughout TDCJ. There's a culture of retaliation that exists within our prison system that keeps people from wanting to report incidences."
Nexstar's review of custodial death reports found at least seven inmates who died of undetermined circumstances after being found unresponsive in uncooled facilities since June 1. Those include 22 year-old Davion Riggs who died of cardiac arrest in the Hughes unit, and 25 year-old Joshua Losoya who died of respiratory distress in the Estelle unit.
TDCJ has pointed to various possible causes of death in the past - including drug overdoses, preexisting health issues, and suicide. Advocates say the uncertainty is the issue.
"We absolutely know what happens to the body under extreme heat. We know how heart attacks happen, how blood vessels dilate. We know how dehydration functions and what it does," Jessica Dickerson with TPCA said. "20-year-olds, 30-year-olds with no preexisting conditions do not die from heat exposure unless it's extreme."
Since 2018, TDCJ has installed air conditioning for nearly 9,000 additional beds. They have cooling plans for almost 16,000 more. But even after the $85 million maintenance and restoration effort, TDCJ will have enough cooled beds for less than half of their 132,000 inmates.
Other letters from inmates report staffing shortages limit how well TDCJ implements their heat safety policies.
"There has been no shower for the past three days nor have they ran (sic) any recreation," a third inmate in the Coffield unit wrote.
"From 3-9 in the afternoon when it's the hottest... there's nobody around. They need to pass water out more than once a day here," wrote another inmate at Coffield.
TDCJ has nearly 6,000 vacancies for correctional officer positions -- nearly one in four positions, unfilled.
The department has urged the legislature for assistance in building more air conditioning. A bipartisan bill to keep temperatures at TDCJ facilities below 85 degrees passed the Texas House last session, but failed to pass the Senate.
"You have to give TDCJ some credit... we're all on the same page for those that are trying to protect our loved ones," Dickerson said. "Our Senate is kind of where we keep getting stuck."
