California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) will begin testing cell cooling projects at three CDCR facilities. The pilot program is funded with $38 million dollars, using methods including air conditioning and insulation, to reduce cell temperatures to 78 degrees Fahrenheit. The pilot will be implemented at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano CA, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla CA, and a prison in Los Angeles County.
The project is a response to rising heat risks from climate change and pressure from activists, lawmakers, and a federal court case, though critics argue it is insufficient as it only covers a small number of incarcerated people and provides no guarantee of future systemwide action. The project is expected to last four years, with results to determine a statewide cooling strategy by mid-2029.
However, don’t expect the prisons to become fully air conditioned anytime soon. The pilot, approved by the California State Legislature this year amid a budget deficit, is a limited test of cooling systems.
Legal pressure is mounting on California’s prison system to address dangerously high temperatures inside prison cells. A long-running class-action federal court case concerning mental healthcare in California prisons now includes heat as a major issue. Plaintiff attorneys in the case have referenced a Texas case, Tiede v. Collier (2023), where a federal judge ruled that the lack of system-wide air conditioning constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
While incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility, Adrienne Boulware died after collapsing during a heatwave in July 2024, a preventable death that saw significant public attention and outrage. In a report published after Boulware’s death, the court-appointed monitor for the federal case noted it was a “tragic reminder” of the harms of failing to protect medically vulnerable inmates from heat.
“Extreme heat poses a serious health risk to all in CDCR,” said Lily Harvey, senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office in Berkeley CA, which represents incarcerated plaintiffs in several federal class-action court cases covering health care in state prisons. “Air-conditioned housing units are the only effective way to protect against that risk.”
You can read more about the pilot project at “Complaints about California’s hellishly hot prison cells have been mounting for years” at the CalMatters website. CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.
