{"id":463822,"date":"2026-10-12T16:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463822\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T16:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T16:00:07","slug":"federal-judge-orders-ac-to-be-installed-at-all-texas-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/463822\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge orders AC to be installed at all Texas prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXAS \u2014 A federal judge recently ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to install air conditioning<\/a> in all its facilities by the end of 2029. This has been met with praise from advocates and those who have been incarcerated. However, the department disagrees with the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Texas is known for its hot summers, which is why there has long\u00a0been a call for all TDCJ facilities to have AC.<\/p>\n

Amite Dominick, the founder and president of Texas Prisons Community Advocates, has been advocating for this for years. She explained to Spectrum News the evidence her organization presented as a plaintiff in a lawsuit over a lack of air conditioning in Texas prisons.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study done with Dr. Carlee Purdum, looking at the surveys of incarcerated individuals and the heat and mortality work that we did with Dr. Julie Skarha, and those pieces became foundational pieces of the lawsuit,\u201d Dominick said. \u201cWe\u2019d also done other things like gathering temperature logs and other research items.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, federal Judge Robert Pitman sided with the plaintiffs, writing in his ruling, \u201cTDCJ\u2019s un-air-conditioned prisons violate the Eighth Amendment,\u201d which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

Spectrum News reached out to TDCJ. The department said in part: \u201cThe Texas Department of Criminal Justice respectfully disagrees with the Court\u2019s ruling that TDCJ is deliberately indifferent, and will be appealing the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBring it on,\u201d said Jennifer Toon, the executive director of Lioness Justice Impacted Women\u2019s Alliance. \u201cWe believe in the Constitution, and we believe that our court system is going to honor the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lioness is another plaintiff in the lawsuit. Toon was formerly incarcerated and has experienced hot days in Texas state prisons without AC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ways that we tried to cool ourselves off and kind of mitigate harm, some of us successfully, others not, was to put on wet clothes, was to lay underneath our bunks, if we were in a cubicle that we could get under our bunk, sit in front of a fan in wet clothes,\u201d Toon said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s testimonies like this that contributed to Pitman\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Questions about how TDCJ will install AC into all its facilities in the timeframe laid out in the ruling have been raised, with the judge writing in his opinion that it\u2019s \u201centirely achievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look at the conditions of some of the buildings, there are some additional factors that are coming up when it comes to retrofitting some of the older buildings with AC units,\u201d said Democratic state Rep. Venton Jones of Dallas.<\/p>\n

Jones is vice chair of the Texas House Committee on Corrections and says this issue will be a priority in the next legislative session, including appropriating the funds for it. TDCJ has estimated that installing AC in all its facilities could cost around $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it relates to our funding, Texas definitely has the funds to be able to do this, and we will determine that during the appropriations process,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know my work\u2019s not done yet,\u201d Dominick said. \u201cI know that I have to gear up for next legislative session. So, it was this mixed bag of, \u2018Do we have time to celebrate before we pack our bags for the next round?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 A federal judge recently ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to install air conditioning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1657,1658,2160,132,1570,102,6364,56,223,287,82,27,29,28,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-463822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-geraldine-torrellas","tag-houston","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}