A bill requiring air conditioning in the state’s prisons gained approval from a Texas House panel this week.
House Bill 3006, by Democrat Terry Canales of Edinburg, would mandate that climate control be installed in state lockups. The House Committee on Corrections voted 7-1 in favor of the bill on Wednesday.
“It would essentially put a deadline for lawmakers, as well as the prison officials, to fully install air conditioning across the entire prison system by the end of 2032, as long as the Legislature allocates funding,” said Jasper Scherer, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune. “And this is underway, this effort, but it’s been slow.”
Excessive heat has long been a concern in Texas’ prison system, and last month a federal judge ruled conditions were “plainly unconstitutional.” Heat has been at least a contributing factor in a handful of inmate deaths, though the state denies excessive temperatures were responsible.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has been installing air conditioning in some units.
“They’re kind of chipping away at it. So this would essentially impose a deadline and say, you know, you can’t keep putting prisoners in these 100-degree conditions anymore, which has been kind of a sore spot for some lawmakers,” Scherer said. “They’ve been trying to change that for several years now.”
Hear more stories from the week in Texas politics in the audio player above.
