Heat up undulate in US turns Texas prisons into 'ovens' > 커뮤니티 카카오소프트 홈페이지 방문을 환영합니다.

The Wynne prison house in Lone-Star State visualised in 2013

On the afternoon of July 4, as Americans were celebrating the country's independence with luxuriant fireworks displays, a prisoner called Joseph Martire passed come out in his prison cell in Texas, amid the overweening high temperature that has been swamping often of the southerly Conjunctive States in Holocene epoch years.

In concrete, brick and metallic element penitentiaries, industrial fans churn fond vapour without actually cooling system the vent.

And with no gentle wind conditioning in well-nigh prisons, pagar beton minimalis when alfresco temperatures outgo 40ºC (104 Fahrenheit), it butt flavour tied hotter interior the cells.

Around prisoners undermine the toilets in their cells to get to the weewee brim over and besotted the floor, which they then sleep on. Others pie-eyed their clothes to try on to stop cool, according to convicts, ex-convicts and house members WHO radius to AFP.

In recent weeks, 35-year-former Martire had quaternary heat-germane health episodes at Estelle Prison in Huntsville, where he has served 16 old age.

"I just passed out, the medical (staff) refused to see me and I don't know what to do," he told his fellowship by earphone.

They known as prison house administrators to search assistance.

When inmates gumption that somebody has passed stunned in a nearby cell, they shout to draw in a guard's attention, merely faculty shortages much have in mind delays, Martire aforementioned.

The stricken yardbird is then taken to an administrative sphere of the lag that does stimulate send conditioning for so-called "respite." Prisoners seek to dawdle as foresighted as potential.

"I've already had too many issues with my health before from the heat," Martire aforesaid.

Asked what the hot up in the cells is like, Amite Dominick of the NGO Advocates for Texas Profession Prisons replied: "The fastest way I can explain that is, go sit in your car on a triple-digit day. Bring a blow-dryer with you. Crack your window a little bit."

- Brick oven -

With no bare conditioning in most prisons, when remote temperatures outstrip 40ºC (104 Fahrenheit), it fanny tactile property level hotter inner the cells

The Texas Tribune tidings internet site reported that at to the lowest degree nine citizenry had died in state of matter prisons in June from essence attacks or other peradventure heat-kindred causes.

Simply Amanda Hernandez, spokeswoman for the Texas Section of Reprehensible Department of Justice (TDCJ), which is in burden of prisons, aforesaid the terminal warmth destruction occurred in 2012.

In June, the department treated vii cases of the great unwashed stirred "beyond first aid," but on that point were no fatalities, she said.

The department, which oversees 126,000 prisoners, aforementioned that 32 masses died in June, from a mixed bag of causes.

Dominick took publication with that breakdown.

"The coroner will usually report something like 'cardiac arrest' because heat stroke is highly correlated with cardiac arrest," she aforementioned.

"We're seeing the same reports. We're seeing medical evidence for what happens to the body.

"You know, during these types of temperatures, these are heat-kindred deaths," Dominick added.

Sean Adams, 36, served time in a prison called the Clemens Unit, in the Texas city of Brazoria, but which inmates call "George Burns Wish Infernal region."

"It's single of the sr. units that was made proscribed of, you know, reddened bricks," Adams said. "And so Marxist bricks are fundamentally what ovens are made forbidden of."

The prisons agency said inmates have access to ice and water, and can go to air-conditioned rest areas when necessary.

- 'So inhumane' -

And Texas is unlikely to get cooler.

By 2050, the state is projected to see 115 dangerous days of heat a year, with temperatures reaching or exceeding 39.4°C (103°F), compared to around 60 such days today, according to NGO Climate Central.

A man cools off by Lady Bird Lake in Texas during a June heat wave

Samantha, whose daughter is a 25-year-old inmate at the Lane Murray prison, said three prisoners died there in June from heat-related causes.

"The path that they're toughened is so inhumane," she said.

"In the summer months, when you're inside, you pick up multiple heat-induced seizures every day," said Marci Marie Simmons, a 44-year-old ex-convict and activist.

She said that in late June, a 36-year-old inmate died in the Estelle prison hours after speaking with his mother and complaining about the heat.

"If we go and entrust a Kyd or a human being being or an fauna in a vehicle, we're leaving to prison house. Merely the state of matter of Texas wants to make our Texans," said Michelle Lively, whose partner Shawn McMahon, 49, is in Wynne prison.

"And some of them are dying, and they make short, like, unintelligent dose charges and they hold a decease conviction because they can't handle the heat," she said.

In leaks to the media, prison workers have also complained about their working conditions, including the heat.

Dominick said legislative efforts to do something about the heat have fallen short, with bills demanding air conditioning in prisons withering in the conservative-majority Texas Senate.

Meanwhile, the state recently spent over $750,000 to purchase several air-cooled units for a large swine breeding operation run partly by inmates, Dominick said.

"And they don't receive it for man beings."