Heat horror in the US: prisoners clog toilets to cool off

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More than 50 million people in the southern United States are currently experiencing a heat wave. For many, there is no escaping the high temperatures, especially prisoners in the state of Texas. Despite the fans, the heat in the concrete and steel detention centers exceeds 40 degrees.

Prisoners, released prisoners and relatives said the prisoners resorted to extreme means to endure the heat. They hide the toilets in their cells from overflowing and lie down on the wet floor to sleep. Or they wet their clothes to cool down.

“I Just Fainted”

In recent weeks, inmate Joseph Martire, 35, said he had collapsed four times due to the heat at Estelle Prison in Huntsville. It also collapsed on July 4, the US National Day.

“I just passed out,” he told his family over the phone. “The health workers have refused to see me and I don’t know what to do.” His family contacted the prison administration.

When inmates notice that someone has passed out in their cell, they call the guards. However, due to a lack of staff, it often takes a long time before someone comes, says Martire. The overheated prisoner is then taken to the prison administration block where he can cool off with the air conditioning on.

‘It is inhumane how people are treated there’

Texas Corrections Department spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez says seven cases were handled in June that went beyond first aid. In June, prisons in Texas recorded a total of 32 deaths from various causes. However, the authority responsible for 126,000 prisoners recorded the last official death from heat in 2012.

Amite Dominick of the Advocates for Texas Community Prisons initiative questions these numbers. “The coroner will usually put something like cardiac arrest on their report because heat stroke is directly related to cardiac arrest,” she says. Dominick believes these are heat-related deaths given current temperatures.

Lane Murray Penitentiary had three heat-related deaths in June, said Samantha, whose 25-year-old daughter is being held there. “It’s inhumane how people are treated there.”

Even prison staff are complaining

Activist Marci Marie Simmons, who was in prison herself, says: “In the summer months you see several attacks a day that are provoked by the heat.” In Estelle, a 36-year-old prisoner died hours after complaining to his mother about the heat.

“If we leave a kid or an animal in the car (if it’s hot) we’re going to jail. But Texas wants to cook our inmates,” said Michelle Lively, whose partner Shawn McMahon is in Wynne Prison. die get short, unnecessary sentences for drug offenses. And they’re sentenced to death because they can’t stand the heat.”

Prison staff have also complained to journalists about working conditions, including the heat. A bill to add air conditioning to prisons is stuck in the Texas Senate, Dominick says. The Conservatives have the majority there. The state has already spent more than $ 750,000 (657,000 francs) on air conditioning for a pig farm where prisoners also work. “But they aren’t for humans,” says Dominick. (AFP/jmh)

Source: Blick