Five of the six places in Mississippi where prisons are located are under a heat warning from the National Weather Service as of Friday.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections also doesn’t have a clear plan for when it will add air conditioning to help workers and inmates feel better.
“We are continuing to look into our options to provide air conditioning where possible,” an MDOC spokesperson said in an email. “However, there is no timetable for that installation at this time.”
At the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, a woman in the women’s jail said it’s hard to get out of the heat and that it’s hotter inside than outside because there are no trees or shade. The woman asked not to be named because she was afraid of being hurt.
She said on Tuesday, “It’s actually worse here.” “You feel the heat in your face.”
When you think about how hot or cold something is, you can get the heat index. This is what the temperature feels like on your body. The warning for Friday said that the index temperature could reach 110.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that people who don’t have access to air conditioning, people over 65, and people with long-term diseases are more likely to get sick from the heat. This includes people who are in jail or prison.
The woman who was in prison’s first summer there was last year. During that time, she saw people pass out or have seizures because it was so hot.
Head, a spokesperson for MDOC, said in an email that the department is giving water, ice, and fans to people who are in jail to help them deal with the heat.
This is similar to what has been done in the past, but some prisoners have said that ice isn’t always delivered on time or in enough quantities to serve hundreds of people, and that fans move hot air around. MDOC didn’t answer these worries on Friday.
A woman who is currently in jail said that the church, school, and dining rooms at the women’s prison at CMCF now have air conditioning. It was finished a few weeks ago in her neighborhood, but she hasn’t turned on the AC there yet.
The jail superintendent went to the building where the woman is locked up on Tuesday night and told the people who live there that the air conditioning would not be turned on for a while because it needs a part that is currently out of stock, the woman said.
The woman has also seen how three emotional support dogs that were trained by seminary students are moved to cool rooms with air conditioning and given tubs of water to swim in. She doesn’t get how the animals can get to the comfort while she and the other women can’t.
She was talking about how the guys at CMCF already have air conditioning and the dogs in the women’s prison can get to it. “We get the short end of the stick on everything,” she said.
When asked about the air conditioning and the dogs’ access to it, MDOC did not answer.
Three-quarters of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman got air conditioning last year. Commissioner Burl Cain said that by some time in 2025, Parchman’s Unit 29, the South Mississippi Correctional Institute in Leakesville, and other facilities would also have AC, as long as there was money to pay for the upgrades.
As he told Mississippi Today in April 2023, “It just takes a while to get it all done.” “That’s just how the money works.”
According to reports from the National Weather Service, the heat index at Parchman has been above 130 degrees for 25 of the last 72 hours. This means that a person is likely to get sick from the heat.
According to weather records, the heat index hit 185 at Parchman four times on Wednesday afternoon.
There is no air conditioning in Parchman’s Unit 29, but pictures show that men have attached 8-inch fans they bought at the commissary to the bars of their cells and put their mattresses on the floor under the fans. Some of the men have told supporters that this is how they cool off in the summer.
Some parts of Parchman have had air conditioning since last summer, but Unit 29 is still on the list of jails that will eventually get it.
The commissary sells an 8-inch fan for $29.95 at all jails. This is one of the more expensive items on The Appeal’s list of items sold in prison commissaries.
If someone is in jail and has a job, jobs in the Mississippi prison business can pay anywhere from 20¢ to $1.30 an hour. This is about the same as the national average that the Prison Policy Initiative found. The group also said that normal prison jobs pay between 14 cents and 63 cents an hour across the country.
The privately run Eastern Mississippi Correctional Facility has air conditioning in its housing rooms, but family members told advocates that it hasn’t worked since the end of May.
Since the end of May, the National Weather Service says that the highest temperature in Meridian, which is where the jail is located, has been above 90 degrees every day.
Meridian is also under a heat warning. In the last three days, the hottest temperature recorded was 107 degrees, with humidity at 75%. This is high enough to put people at risk for heat-related illnesses.
A spokeswoman for the Management and Training Corp., Emily Lawhead, said that technicians have found problems with the air conditioners and will install new ones when they get there.
In an email, she said, “We’re working hard to get all AC units back online as soon as possible.”
For now, Lawson said that cold water and fans are available, and that staff and prisoners are given Gatorade to drink to stay refreshed. She said Friday that swamp coolers are keeping the air cool in places where AC units are being fixed.
A national problem is the heat in prisons. To solve it, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (a group that helps people who are in jail and their families) and One Voice United (a group that helps corrections staff) have joined forces.
The Safer Prisons, Safer Communities campaign is drawing attention to a national problem: prisons are getting too crowded, don’t have enough staff, and are falling apart. This makes it impossible for prisoners to get better and makes things bad for staff, families, and communities.
Andy Potter is the executive director of One Voice United and used to work as a jail officer in Michigan. He knows that prison buildings can be old and that adding air conditioning can be expensive.
But he said that fans, water bottles, and Gatorade aren’t enough for people who are in jail and the staff who work there to stay cool. Potter said people who are in jail and staff don’t have the freedom or ability to get help in the same way that people who aren’t in prison do.
Vice President of Policy for FAMM Daniel Landsman said that air conditioning can help lower crime and deaths, which studies have shown to rise with heat.
“Our prison system is already bad enough, and the heat will make things worse,” he said.
Under a Creative Commons license, you can share our stories online or in print for free.
