The Senate of Virginia is considering a bill to help inmates of prisons avoid extreme heat.
Seven prisons in Virginia do not have air conditioning, and Delegate Holly Seibold says people who are incarcerated have told her about temperatures in excess of 100 degrees.
"We've heard stories of people putting water to cool themselves down and steam just rising from the inside of the cells. Many of the prisons I did visit had fans, but those fans were in the pod areas, the general population, and not necessarily in the cells," Seibold. "The cells are usually concrete with just a tiny window and there's no circulation from those fans coming into the prisons."
That's why she introduced a bill requiring prisons that have air conditioning to keep temperatures between 65 degrees and 80 degrees. In addition to that legislation, the House version of the budget includes $72 million to install air conditioning in the prisons that don't currently have it. Senator Bill DeSteph is a Republican from Virginia Beach.
"If you break the law and go to jail, and it gets a little over 80, I don't have any issues with that when we have our military on a daily basis in extreme heat over 100 degrees or 120 degrees and we expect them to deal with it," DeSteph says. "And yes, some of them have heat stress or heat stroke. But you know what? That's part of life."
The bill has already passed the House and a Senate committee, which means it'll be on the Senate floor soon.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
