Prisoners plead for air conditioning in lawsuit against Department of Corrections

The lawsuit filed this week by the prison reform advocacy group Florida Justice Institute says that heat at the Dade Correctional Facility has contributed to the deaths of four people there and that prison officials have failed to take “meaningful action” to mitigate the risk posed to the elderly and disabled inmates in their care.

The lawsuit, which names the Florida Department of Corrections, the secretary of the department and the warden of DCI as defendants, argues that the conditions violate the protections of the Eighth Amendment, which bar cruel and unusual punishment, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

“We had to file this lawsuit because they’ve thus far ignored the concerns of incarcerated people and their advocates. And so it appears they need a court to order them to do what they should have done on their own,” said Andrew Udelsman, an attorney with the Florida Justice Institute.

A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections said the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation and stated that the agency has no record of being served the lawsuit.

Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths, according to the World Health Organization. While deadly heat is not new, scientists say it has been amplified in scale, frequency and duration with climate change. Last year, the United States had its most recorded heat deaths in more than 80 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Yet the majority of incarcerated individuals in sweltering Florida are serving their sentences in cells that don’t have air conditioning, even as the state’s rising temperatures continue to break records. The risk is even greater for the elderly and those with medical conditions that make them more susceptible to heat-related illness.

According to testimony that Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon gave to state lawmakers last year, 75% of the state’s prison housing units are not air-conditioned. Bills filed last year that would have mandated the department install air conditioning in state prisons died in the Republican-controlled legislature.

“When you are in the facility and you visit a dorm that does not have air conditioning, you look at the guards who are tasked with maintaining security in those spaces, it is absolutely oppressive,” Republican State Sen. Jennifer Bradley said at a hearing last October.

“There are things we can do in our system to mitigate the heat. Or Florida will find itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit,” she warned. “And it will be a lot more expensive.”

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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.