At least 41 people have died in the Lone Star State’s unairconditioned prisons due to heat-related or unknown conditions this summer, according to the Texas Tribune.
Even so, it’s hard to firmly establish how many have succumbed to heat-related illness, according to observers. That’s because TDCJ’s official stance is that no inmates have died of heat exhaustion since 2012 — the same year the agency began to be bombarded with wrongful death lawsuits from inmates’ families, the Tribune reports.
Like with most things under republican control, suffering is the point. They like it when people they don’t like suffers and they will pay money to see it happen. In this case they cause the suffering AND they save money so there is no way it’s getting fixed while Texas is red.
Texas can’t even provide proper climate control to their regular unincarcerated citizens. The prisons never had a chance.
There’s a difference there. You can justify it under capitalism that unincarcerated people have access to air conditioning if they choose to prioritize it and work for it. Choice is one of the things denied to prisoners. It’s why they theoretically get access to medical care.