Incarcerated individuals in winter often find themselves facing severe health risks due to unheated or poorly heated, drafty facilities, leading to dangerous hypothermia, increased illness, and in some cases, death. Dilapidated infrastructure often fails during extreme cold, leaving cells freezing, causing water to freeze in toilets, and exacerbating existing respiratory or health conditions.
Every winter brings with it new horror stories of freezing temperatures in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention facilities. Across the country, vague regulations regarding temperature leave the door open to dangerous interpretation, resulting in harm, and worse, fatalities. The United Nations Committee against Torture has expressed “extreme concern” over deaths in U.S. jails and prisons due to unbearable temperatures. It says that the United States should “adopt urgent measures to remedy any deficiencies concerning temperature, insufficient ventilation and humidity levels in prison cells.”
Poor heating systems in prisons and jails combined with abysmal mental health care create especially dangerous situations for people with mental health conditions. Certain antipsychotic drugs can affect the body’s ability to regulate temperature. When these drugs are given to people who are incarcerated in freezing conditions with little to nothing to protect them from the elements, life-threatening hypothermia can result.
“Without a blanket, all someone can do is get in fetal position and hope he has enough shivering capacity to withstand the slow reduction of heat from his body,” said Dr. Robert Pozos, the former director of the hypothermia research laboratory at University of Minnesota Duluth.
People who recognize the inhumanity in this treatment support clothing drives and collect warm clothes for incarcerated people. The fact that such drives exist underscores the need to radically transform corrections culture. Setting and enforcing specific temperature regulations can help prevent harm, and at worst, death. More importantly, U.S. correctional facilities must build cultures that truly respect and center the humanity of people who are incarcerated.
Unbearably cold temperatures are emblematic of a culture of punishment and dehumanization. People who are incarcerated deserve an environment that is safe enough to foster healing, hope, and restoration and is grounded in respect for their dignity as human beings.
You can read more in “When Temps Plunge, Dilapidated Jails and Prisons Put Lives at Risk” at the Marshall Project website. The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.
