As a Heat Wave Roiled Illinois, People Incarcerated Suffered The Most – Inside Climate News

As heat grips Illinois this summer, one group is more vulnerable to extreme heat than any other: Those incarcerated inside the state’s decaying prisons and jails. 

People incarcerated in facilities the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) operates have been exposed to dangerous environmental conditions for years, according to environmental and social justice advocates. Just last year, a federal judge ordered the evacuation of most residents from the now-closed Stateville Correctional Center due to the risk of people being struck by falling concrete. 

In a July 24 letter to Gov. JB Pritzker from Uptown People’s Law Center, the local public interest law firm alleges that people inside multiple IDOC facilities are being kept in dangerous conditions, exacerbated by extreme heat. Some of the concerns that the letter outlines include: lack of access to potable water, lack of access to fans, lack of access to cool spaces and directives from correctional officers and other staff that discourage people from seeking assistance in the facilities’ health care units. 

“We have been informed of health crises and deaths resulting from the sweltering conditions inside cells,” the letter says. Later on in the letter, UPLC states that existing rules are often ignored. 

“We are also aware that many staff are failing to implement the policies that already exist. For example, staff often fail to pass out any ice at all even though directives require that ice be passed out four times a day when temperatures reach 85 degrees or more.” 

Representatives for IDOC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Alyssa Meurer, a staff attorney and Larsen Justice Fellow at the Uptown People’s Law Center, said the lack of climate control and the poor quality of aging infrastructure have elevated her worry about the people living inside these facilities. 

“I’m worried that people are actually going to die,” said Meurer. “It’s emergency-level heat. It’s upwards of 100 degrees, 110 on some of those [floors], especially on the higher ones,” she said. 

As global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, extreme heat has emerged as a deadly threat. It is the deadliest climate impact, killing more people than hurricanes, wildfires and other climate-related natural disasters. Illinois specifically is slated to be a part of an extreme heat belt that will stretch from Texas to Wisconsin. By 2053, these states are expected to experience at least one day a year where the heat index surpasses 125 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a 2022 report from the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit climate risk research group.

The late July heat wave that zapped the Midwest had all the indications of a climate-related event, according to Climate Central. 

In Illinois prisons, the threat is even worse, with dirty or dangerous living conditions including little to no access to air conditioning, contaminated water and few real ways to cool down. Extreme heat was a major factor in the death, last June, of Michael Broadway, a writer and cancer survivor incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center, who died of bronchial asthma, with hypertensive cardiovascular disease and heat stress, according to his autopsy. His death devastated the local community and his family is suing the Illinois Department of Corrections for wrongful death. 

Despite these clear warnings, IDOC has not considered how extreme heat could pose a deadly threat to people living inside them, according to the letter, nor have they changed any practices. 

“Historically, a lot of these buildings are very old,” said Meurer. “They were built as far back as the 1800s … part of that is the issue.”

Meurer also said that any HVAC infrastructure that does exist is often “old and decrepit” or doesn’t work. 

She said that people inside the facilities have been subjected to increased lockdowns in the five years since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S. “People really aren’t leaving their cells,” she said. “They could be in their cells upwards of 20 hours a day.”

This limits individuals’ access to the few areas that do have air conditioning. 

Hot conditions are already difficult but being confined to a cell where there’s little to no airflow and often a door blocking what airflow is going on in the hallway can be a dangerous experience, particularly for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Anyone who is older, has asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, has a cardiovascular disease or who takes certain medications for mood disorders is more susceptible to heat-related illnesses and death. Additionally, there’s often nothing to do except focus on how hot you are, said Meurer. For people in lockdown, there’s only one relief—and it’s not guaranteed. 

“[People in prison] were telling me that the heat was really bad, and they were almost grateful to have their legal visits, because they were like, ‘Oh, I can finally get some time in air conditioning,’” said Meurer. 

Raphel Jackson, a program manager and higher education evaluator for the Chicago-based Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project, was incarcerated for 26 years and experienced stifling heat at multiple prisons in Illinois during that time. 

“[There was] little to no air circulation outside of the commissary fan that you’re able to purchase, which only blows hot air because it’s hot, but it’s better than having nothing,” he said. “It was so hot in Menard [Correctional Center], it was like they had to allow you to buy more than one fan, because one fan didn’t cut it.” 

But even what little cooling is allowed is currently being restricted, according to Meurer, since new restrictions on sizing means that fans that were allowed in the past are no longer acceptable, and are being confiscated. Prisoners are supposed to be able to have fans that were each up to 10 inches, according to an administrative directive, but recently have been told that instead they are only allowed to have one six-inch fan and one eight-inch fan. 

“They’re getting contradictory messages and threats to get punished for having too many items in their cell when they were just following the guidelines by the IDOC,” she said. 

These problems predated the record-breaking heat that the world has seen over the past few years, and concerns about unsanitary and unsafe conditions in Illinois prisons have been reported for decades. While climate change isn’t the cause of those problems, it is exacerbating them. 

“It’s not like heat makes prison unbearable, it’s that prison is unbearable and the heat makes it even worse,” said Shireen Jalali-Yazdi, a legal fellow at the Uptown People’s Law Center. 

Illinois prisons have long struggled with providing safe drinking water and in last year the Appeal reported that five prisons in Illinois tested positive for legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease. Local groups also filed a petition to the U.S. EPA to investigate the issue of toxic water in Illinois prisons last year. This means that when it gets hot, a cool drink of water, some of the only relief available to incarcerated people, is also potentially toxic. 

Meurer worries that because of the ongoing water issues that the ice provided could also be unsafe to consume, if it’s made from water at these facilities. 

In recent years, in response to reporting and lawsuits related to the water conditions at Stateville and other prisons, nonprofit and community groups have organized bottled water drop offs. But according to Meurer, people inside are still being subjected to contaminated water during heatwaves. 

“I didn’t know that Stateville had a major water issue that people have been fighting lawsuits about,” said Jackson. “But I do remember. I do recall being in [solitary confinement] and not wanting to drink the water so I end up dehydrated and having asthma-related issues due to dehydration.” 

These ongoing issues make it difficult for anyone in these IDOC facilities to exist comfortably, according to Meurer. She’s concerned about people she represents who struggle to keep calm and stay out of trouble. A 2021 study published in The Lancet pointed to a larger body of research that came to the same conclusion: Hotter temperatures often lead to more aggression and violence. 

Jackson knows firsthand what it’s like to have to deal with stifling heat in prison, but even in these potentially fatal conditions, people inside are often preoccupied with worry for their loved ones outside of the prison. 

“You had more people have more concern about their loved ones out there, living in poverty, surviving than themselves,” said Jackson. “The situations in [prisons] are just as horrible, but people are more concerned about their loved ones.”