The cruelty of heat-related deaths inside Texas prisons is preventable | Opinion
Richard Linklater’s newest film, Hit Man, hits theaters this month. But the director of Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Bad News Bears recently shot some footage that will never see the light of day. Last summer, Linklater spent hours recording his friend Bernie Tiede in a sweltering Texas prison.
Portrayed by Jack Black in Linklater’s 2011 film Bernie, Tiede, now 65 and wrestling with medical issues, is serving a 99-year sentence in the un-air-conditioned Estelle Unit in Huntsville.
Linklater’s footage shows a white-haired man, the left side of his mouth paralyzed, as he describes sweaty, sleepless nights: “There’s no escape. It doesn’t ever cool down,” says Tiede, who was hospitalized last summer due to heat exhaustion. “This is inhumane. You’d be arrested if you treated a dog like this.”
Speaking of animals, Tiede asks Linklater about his pet pig, “Dude.” Linklater confesses that he splurged on a $129 air conditioner for his porcine friend. “Dude the pig is living better than you are.”
Last year was the second hottest summer on record in the Lone Star State. Huntsville, home to seven Texas prisons, hit 111 degrees, its hottest day on record.
And it’s often hotter inside. Tiede tells of 120-degree days and triple-digit nights. His report is corroborated by a Texas A&M University study that showed Texas prisons regularly hit 110 degrees, while at least one hit 149 degrees.
Most Texans endure brutal summers with swimming pools, frozen margaritas, and air conditioning. Nearly 100% of Texans have air conditioning at home or work. Even Texas’ jails (county facilities where people are held pretrial) and federal prisons are required to be air conditioned.
Yet two-thirds of the 121,000 people living in Texas prisons have no air conditioning. The blistering heat also affects nearly 28,000 prison staff.
In 2011, Texas’s hottest summer on record, 10 people in the state’s prisons died from heat stroke. The number of heat-related deaths since is controversial.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice reports zero heat-related deaths since 2012. But researchers estimate that 14 people living in Texas prisons die each year from heat-related illness. Advocates believe the true number is even higher. And the number of persons suffering heat-related illness is unknown.
Fixing this problem is simple.
Texas banked a $32.7 billion budget surplus ahead of last legislative session. During session, the Texas House of Representatives budgeted $545 million—about 1/60th of that surplus—to air condition Texas prisons. (Aside from ongoing electrical and maintenance costs, installing air conditioning is largely a one-time investment.) The House also passed a bill that would require Texas prisons to maintain temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees. But bill and budget both died in the Senate.
Tiede and others have now sued the State of Texas. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare Texas’ failure to air condition its prisons unconstitutional and to require all prison facilities to be kept under 85 degrees.
Meanwhile, another scorching summer is approaching.
The cruelty of heat-related death and illness inside Texas prisons is preventable. We have a solution. We even have money to pay for it. We just need political will. Governor Greg Abbott and Texas leadership should strive for both decency and constitutional compliance and make prison air conditioning a priority.
Eckhardt, D-Austin, is a Texas State Senator. Burkhart is executive director of the Texas Fair Defense Project.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Cruelty of heat-related deaths in inside Texas prisons is preventable
