Hot weather has returned to much of the state, raising new fears of heat-related illness or death in places where people can’t cool off. Eighteen of the state’s prisons have no air conditioning, and that’s sparked criticism from a human rights group that keeps tabs on correctional centers nationwide. Sandy Hausman has that story:
After an inmate died at the Buckingham Correctional Center, the Virginia Department of Corrections said it had tried to keep inmates cool – using mounted wall fans, making extra ice and water available.
Inmates say there were no new fans, no extra ice, and bottled water was offered only to staff. If prisoners wanted water or fans, they could buy them from the commissary when it was their turn to shop.
At the Human Rights Defense Center in Florida, director Paul Wright was not surprised. In much of the South, he says, politicians have made a conscious choice to be cruel.
“The decision to torture prisoners by subjecting them to heat extremes is almost exclusively an issue in the states of the former Confederacy.”
Many inmates are African-American, but Wright doesn’t see racism at play. Instead, he contends, the failure to air condition is a sign that prison guards in Virginia have little power.
“Talk to a California prison guard and ask them if they would be working in these conditions," Wright suggests. "They’re like, ‘Hey, that’s what we’ve got a union for.’”
There are drinking fountains at the prisons, but experts say drinking large amounts of water can cause medical complications, that showers and smaller amounts of cold water are effective only for brief periods, and fans are not effective in cooling the human body when the temperature is over 95 degrees.
Editor's note: The medical examiner has not yet determined the cause of death for 63-year-old Walter Eisenhower, but experts say high heat can be especially hard on older people who are not in good health.