Prison Heat
Dr. Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, TX
Prison Heat
by Xandan Gulley
I sit in a 6’ x 9’ concrete and steel cell, 24 hours a day, in solitary confinement. The heat drains me physically, leaving me exhausted, dehydrated, and petrified. The ventilation system circulates outside air, regularly exceeding 100 degrees. Cell walls retain this heat and release it throughout the night, only for the cycle to repeat the next morning. During the days, steel furnishings get hot enough to singe my skin.
The summer sun warms the water pipes like a stove. Cool water does not run in the sink, and even if it did the pipes are so old the water flows with rust, rendering it undrinkable. No options for respite or cooling sources are available.
Imagine sitting on the concrete outside on a hot summer day. No shade to shield you from the sun, no cold water to cool you off. You’re sweating profusely. The stifling air circulating is suffocating you. You’re literally gasping for fresh air. The heat is sizzling! That’s what incarcerated people are subjected to during Texas summers.
Sometimes I get delirious from the heat. Sometimes I feel like I’m dying. I’ve hallucinated. I’ve gotten so mad from the heat, I would punch the walls. Many people lose their minds. Many commit suicide if the heat doesn’t kill them first. The heat depletes the soul, draining any life from the body.
My body feels like bread in an oven, the skin rising like dough. I’m being cooked alive, tortured slowly. The nausea sets in. My skin is clammy to the touch. My muscles are cramping but I’m not moving. My pulse is throbbing as if my heart wants to burst out of my chest. I wonder, “Is this what it feels like to die?”
I’ve lost consciousness in my cell more times than I can recall. Passed out on the floor with no medical attention, no officer acknowledging my demise, never receiving a timeout from the heat. The heat leaves the incarcerated in a weakened state. Many think they’re sleeping when they’re actually passed out from heatstroke.
I’ve had headaches so bad from the heat that my vision is gray. I’m so hot I can’t think. I can’t concentrate on reading a book, the words on the page make no sense. My sweat drops are big globs of desperation. My body is in agony. The heat leaves me in turmoil.
This prison is a hothouse. A political symbol of disempowerment and imperialism that dehumanizes, degrades, and annihilates humans. Texas prisons are a dungeon of torment.
Xandan Gulley is an author, advocate, and inmate at the Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, TX. As a transgender male, he is assigned to a women’s facility due to TDCJ rules. The prison staff has confined him in “administrative segregation” (solitary confinement) for all but one month since June 2012.
Editor’s Note
By Ben Revis, AIA
The Lane Murray Unit, referenced above, contains a series of uninsulated metal dormitory buildings with CMU interior walls. The buildings are mechanically ventilated but, apart from guard accommodation, are not air conditioned. Texas law requires city and county jail facilities to maintain temperatures between 65- and 85-degrees Fahrenheit. This law does not apply to state-owned or operated facilities.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates and maintains approximately 100 inmate housing facilities (prisons, hospitals, mental hospitals, etc.) across the state. In response to repeated inmate lawsuits related to the conditions, they have offered personal-sized fans and cooling towels for purchase in their commissaries. They also make ice water available to inmates for drinking, but the discretion of the guard staff determines the quantity and timing. Very little progress has been made over the last decade to increase access to air conditioning in their existing facilities. At the current pace of installation and funding, it would take between 30 and 70 years for all existing buildings to be air conditioned.
In May of this year, a Federal District Court (Western District of Texas) advised that the conditions created by a lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons amount to a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Hon. Robert Pitman stopped short of requiring the immediate addition of AC systems to existing facilities (due to logistical and financial constraints), but concluded, “This case concerns the plainly unconstitutional treatment of some of the most vulnerable, marginalized members of our society. The Court finds that Plaintiffs have met their burden of establishing a likelihood of success on the merits that [Bryan] Collier is violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Court is of the view that excessive heat is likely serving as a form of unconstitutional punishment.”
In his deposition testimony for this lawsuit, Bryan Collier, the director of the TDCJ, stated that he wants to provide air conditioning for all their facilities but is unable to proceed with meaningful implementation without funding from the Legislature. Collier is retiring at the end of August after 40 years with the TDCJ, the last nine as director.
The TDCJ estimates that it will cost in excess of $1.1 billion to fully air condition its existing prisons. In 2022 the department proposed phased implementation to the Legislature, asking for $225 million for phase 1. They appropriated $85.5 million, which was not earmarked for air conditioning, but the department is utilizing funds for that purpose.
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts estimated the state has a $18.29 billion surplus for the 2024-2025 budget year. During the recently concluded legislative session, members introduced four bills to address improving climate conditions in Texas Prisons (HB 1315, HB 2997, HB 3006, and HB 489). Only HBB 3006 received a vote, passing the House, but the Senate approved none of the proposed legislation.
This year the legislature approved $301 million to construct new prison dorms in addition to the TDCJ operating budget of $9 billion. The TDCJ states that the new beds will all be equipped with air conditioning. These beds are not intended to replace existing, sub-standard facilities. The construction is to accommodate a growing state prison population, which currently totals around 145,000.
The TDCJ claims to have around 46,000 “cool beds,” which they define as being in proximity to partial or full air conditioning. This leaves some 100,000 inmates (two-thirds of the population) spending all or most of their time without access to air conditioning.
Inmates die each summer from heat-related causes. The numbers have become harder to track because the department stopped listing heat stroke as a cause of death amid continual lawsuits. The Texas Tribune reported, “Although the state has not reported a heat-related death since 2012, researchers and inmates’ families dispute those statistics. A 2022 study found that 14 prison deaths per year were associated with heat. Last year, a Texas Tribune analysis found that at least 41 people had died in uncooled prisons during the state’s record-breaking heat wave.”
Suicide is also a significant and growing issue for those incarcerated in Texas prisons. The TDCJ data suggests suicides have nearly doubled over the last four years, averaging 56 a year from 2020 to 2023. This rate exceeds suicides in the general population (14 per 100,000) by a factor of two and a half times.
In 2024 the TDCJ budget included $2.68 billion in federal COVID relief funding, which was used to reduce the State’s General Revenue Fund contribution by more than $2 billion from the previous year. In 2022, the TDCJ received an additional $1.16 billion in COVID funding. In other words, despite nearly $4 billion in federal funding directed to prisons over three years, the TDCJ and the State of Texas simply redistributed those funds to other priorities while claiming there were not enough funds to provide air conditioning for the existing prisons.
Prisons are planned, designed, detailed, coordinated and constructed by design professionals. The AIA Code of Ethics specifically addresses prison design in two rules:
RULE 1.403: Members shall not knowingly design spaces intended for execution. The purpose of Rule 1.403 is not to address individual positions or opinions. Rather, it is to codify how AIA members choose to embrace the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and competence. They are part of a community of regulated professionals who, through their required education, training, and practice, protect the health, safety, and welfare of those who come into contact with their work. The design of spaces for execution is inconsistent with that ideal. Designing spaces intended to end human life is inconsistent with the ideal of upholding human rights. What is lawful and what is ethical are two separate inquiries; acting lawfully may not equate to acting ethically. With respect to Rule 1.403, Members should not be involved in the design of spaces intended for execution, regardless of whether execution is legally authorized.
RULE 1.404: Members shall not knowingly design spaces intended for torture, including indefinite or prolonged solitary confinement. For the purpose of Rule 1.404, solitary confinement shall be defined as the confinement of prisoners for twenty-two (22) hours or more per day without meaningful human contact. Prolonged solitary confinement shall be defined as solitary confinement, as defined above, for a time period in excess of fifteen (15) consecutive days as defined in UN Resolution 70/175, “United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners.”
Additionally, AIA Ethical Standard 1.5 states Design for Human Dignity and the Health, Safety, and Welfare of the Public. AIA Members should employ their professional knowledge and skill to design buildings and spaces that will enhance and facilitate human dignity and the health, safety, and welfare of the individual and the public.