Inmates increasingly threatened by rising temperatures as heat becomes more extreme

Steve Brooks' cell has no windows or air conditioning, so he relies on two 8-inch fans when it's stifling inside California's oldest prison. There's no access to ice or cold water, and during periodic power outages, there is no electricity.



During an eight-hour outage in 2024, the heat rose to between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (32 and 38 degrees Celsius).  It was just really scary.  It felt, he said, like he was running out of oxygen.

As climate change fuels hotter temperatures, inmates are increasingly vulnerable.

Extreme heat can cause symptoms such as dizziness, nausea and headaches. Heat stroke, the most serious heat illness, can kill. When heat combines with humidity, it makes it harder for sweat to evaporate to cool the body.

Many prisons and detention centers in the U.S. are older buildings with antiquated, less efficient or nonexistent cooling systems. Many were built during a prison boom that started in the 1970s and were constructed with heat-trapping materials like concrete and steel. And many prisons are overcrowded.

Research shows the number of hot days has increased, and that hotter temperatures are linked to a higher risk of death for inmates, including from suicides.

Damon Gilbert, a staff attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said heat-related deaths in prisons are underreported and often do not account for how high temperatures make chronic health issues worse.  It's incredibly dangerous, and it's only getting more dangerous. And so far, we are not keeping up as a country to adapting these facilities. 

Prisons are getting hotter, increasing risk of death

One study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that most U.S. prisons had at least 10 days in the summer that were hotter than every previous summer, and several factors

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