As climate change increases, deadly heat in prisons is becoming more of a problem

This story was produced by The Appeal and published jointly with Ground material.

On June 19, Michael Broadway was having trouble breathing in his cell at the Stateville Correctional Center, a dilapidated Illinois state prison about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.

Outside, temperatures were above 30 degrees, and the heat index – the perceived temperature – was almost 38 degrees. Just a few days earlier, a severe heat wave had brought several days of temperatures above 35 degrees. Without air conditioning or ventilation, Broadway's unit on the fifth floor of the prison had become a sweltering furnace.

“We live on the top gallery in the cell block,” Mark, who lived next to Broadway, told The Appeal via the prison's news service. “It never gets cooler. Personal fans blow hot air. You have to sit still. If you move, you sweat.”

(The appeal uses a pseudonym to protect Mark from retaliation.)

Mark and the others in Broadway's cell block screamed for help, but a nurse did not arrive until more than 15 minutes later, according to a statement from Broadway's neighbor Anthony Ehlers to the law firm representing Broadway's family.

“It's too hot,” the nurse said, according to Ehlers. “I'm not going up there. Tell him to come down here.”

Broadway was “holding his neck and gasping for air,” Ehlers said. An officer radioed that Broadway could not walk. By the time the nurse entered his cell, he had already lost consciousness, Ehlers said. She administered Narcan and officers began CPR. Ehlers repeatedly called out that Broadway had asthma and was not taking any medication. The stretcher was broken, so Mark, with the help of three staff members, carried Broadway down five flights of stairs on his bedsheet. Broadway was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Broadway was 51 at the time of his death. While incarcerated, he battled cancer, wrote a novel and earned his bachelor's degree from Northwestern University. An IDOC spokesperson said in an email that the investigation is ongoing.

“Mike was truly special and he deserved better than to die from something that was so easily preventable,” Ehlers wrote to The Appeal.

As summers get hotter, conditions are becoming more dangerous for the more than one million people locked up in state prisons, most of which lack widespread air conditioning. Even prisons in some of the hottest states, such as Louisiana, Texas and Georgia, are only partially air-conditioned, a survey of state correctional officials conducted by The Appeal found. For the six states that did not participate in the survey — Florida, Tennessee, Michigan, Nevada, Kansas and West Virginia — The Appeal gathered information from news reports, including local reports and a 2022 analysis of prison air conditioning by USA Today.

According to The Appeal’s investigation:

• Only five states have air conditioning in all prison quarters.
• In 22 states, most people are housed in air-conditioned units, meaning more than 50 percent of state prisoners live in air-conditioned housing units.
• In 17 states, some prison quarters are air-conditioned across multiple facilities.
• In five states, only a few residential units are air-conditioned – only a single facility and/or special units such as hospital wards are cooled.
• Only one state, Alaska, has no air-conditioned housing units.
• Just over 80 percent of federal prisons have comprehensive air conditioning.

Research has found that higher temperatures – and particularly longer periods of extreme heat – are associated with higher death rates in prisons. Despite the link between heat and mortality, the exact number of heat-related deaths is unknown because many prisons do not properly record or report them. This raises concerns among activists that officials are effectively hiding these deaths behind other causes of death.

In a high-profile case in California in July, Adrienne “Twin” Boulware died after collapsing at the Central California Women's Facility during a heat wave, attorneys say. Boulware's family said prison staff told them she died of heat stroke, but a state Department of Corrections spokesman wrote in an email that Boulware's cause of death “appears to be an ongoing medical condition and not related to the heat.” The final determination will be made by the county coroner's office, the spokesman said.

For years, prison inmates and activists have called for universal air conditioning and better access to ice, cold water and showers to combat the heat. Yet many prisons continue to deny prisoners even the most basic accommodations, while lawmakers offer only sporadic investments in installing air conditioning. Inmates often rely on small, personal fans to provide some level of comfort, but previous reporting by The Appeal has shown that these devices can be too expensive for many, especially on a meager salary – if they are paid at all.

Without a radical shift from the status quo, the man-made crises of climate change and mass incarceration are on a collision course, putting the lives of more and more prisoners at risk. As extreme temperatures ravage the country, the problem is expanding beyond historical hot spots in the South and Southwest, leading to more intense and frequent heat waves in states with traditionally milder climates.

This summer, much of the country experienced heat waves, including Washington state, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and New Hampshire. According to a survey by The Appeal, none of the prisons have air conditioning. Research suggests that extreme heat can be particularly dangerous for people who are not used to such high temperatures.

In New York, most of the state's roughly 30,000 inmates are locked in housing units without air conditioning. This summer, the heat index in areas where some state prisons are located has been around 100 degrees for several days in a row. In New Hampshire, only one of the state's three prisons, the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women, has air conditioning. Temperatures in Concord, home to the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, broke records in July when temperatures reached 90 degrees for 12 consecutive days.

In New Jersey, the third fastest warming state in the U.S. and the fastest warming in the Northeast, about 65 percent of housing units are air-conditioned.

Marsha's son is in Bayside State Prison, where most housing units are not air-conditioned. The prison is “stiflingly hot,” she said. (The Appeal is using a pseudonym for Marsha to protect her son from retaliation.) Last month, temperatures at Bayside reached over 90 degrees on nine different days. Marsha's son told her they get ice twice a day, but it “melts immediately,” she said.

To beat the heat, Marsha said her son bought a couple of fans from the store; one of them was on sale at a discount. According to a list from the state prison store obtained by The Appeal last year, a 9-inch fan costs about $16.

A Department of Corrections spokesperson said in an email that people housed in units without air conditioning could purchase a fan and a 28-quart cooler at a discounted price if they had not already been provided to them.

Like much of the Northeast, Vermont is warming at an alarming rate and is one of the fastest-warming states in the country, according to research group Climate Central.

In June, the Vermont State Employees' Association filed a complaint with the state on behalf of members who work at the Southern State Correctional Facility. According to the complaint, an officer suffered heat stroke while working in the prison's infirmary. Although this is the only unit in the facility with air conditioning, the complaint alleges it was not working properly at the time.

A spokesperson for the Vermont DOC told The Appeal in an email that Southern State is the next prison to receive universal air conditioning, with the project expected to be completed by 2027. Lawmakers earlier this year approved funding for a fraction of the projected cost of installing air conditioning in all of the state's prisons, according to local news outlet Vermont Public.

“The state is actively working to install air conditioning in all correctional facilities,” a Vermont DOC spokesperson said in an email. “Investing in the physical infrastructure of our facilities, including installing air conditioning, is a high priority for the department to ensure a dignified and comfortable life for those who live and work in Vermont's correctional facilities.”

Only two of Vermont's six prisons are fully air-conditioned, which the DOC says represents 29 percent of the state's housing units. The DOC spokesperson said that depending on the facility, staff may hand out free ice twice a day, set up fans in common areas, use water misters, hand out popsicles or set up water and shade stations in the yard. Prisoners can purchase a 6-inch desk fan for about $13 and an 8-inch fan for $42, nearly double the price at a local Lowe's.

Prisoner rights activist Timothy Burgess said he had received reports of extreme heat from inside the southern state.

“People are boiling,” said Burgess, the executive director of the Vermont chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, an advocacy group called CURE. “This summer, like the last one, is absolutely brutal.”