People in MO, KS prisons with no AC endure scorching summers | The Kansas City Star

SKIP TO CONTENT Account SUBSCRIBER EDITION Part of the McClatchy Media Network Saturday, July 29, 2023 Today's eEdition 79°F 102° 76° News Sports Chiefs Politics Opinion Personal Finance Betting Obituaries KC City Guide BBQ Passport Detour • Noticias Shopping LOCAL ‘Feels like you’re suffocating’: Kansas and Missouri prisoners without AC demand relief BY KATIE MOORE AND LUKE NOZICKA UPDATED FEBRUARY 05, 2023 11:11 AM NEIL NAKAHODO The Kansas City Star At the Algoa Correctional Center in Jefferson City, without air conditioning, the best a prisoner can hope for on intensely hot days is some ice. Even though prisoners get ice three times a day, it melts in about 30 minutes. And sometimes there is not enough of it, so men last in line for “ice call” don’t get any, said a prisoner who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution. This story is a subscriber exclusive Like other prisons without air conditioning in Missouri, Kansas and elsewhere, rising temperatures can put the health and safety of prisoners and staff at risk. Current and recent prisoners say the lack of AC is not only uncomfortable, but potentially dangerous. They sweat through their clothes and watch friends faint, all while pleading for AC — which, health officials agree, is the best protection against heat-related illness. Heat-related complaints are up this year in Missouri. The Department of Corrections has received 40 such complaints — double the number it got in all of 2021 from incarcerated people or their loved ones. Just as many prisoners in Kansas have said they experienced headaches, dizziness and other issues that can be symptoms of heat-related illness. “It is just absolutely miserable,” one Missouri prisoner said. “This is cruel and unusual punishment,” another added. The hottest day so far this year in Jefferson City was July 23, when the high hit 104 degrees. Another six days have reached triple digit temperatures, including one when the heat index was 110. The man inside Algoa, which opened in 1932, said there is no AC in the communal area or living quarters. “If you’re in the hole, solitary confinement, there’s no fans,” said the man, who is serving time for drug crimes and unlawful possession of a weapon. “You’re just in there with nothing.” No heat deaths have been reported in Kansas or Missouri prisons in the past five years. Kansas officials say they have no record of “ever having” a heat-related death. But prisoners say the risk remains. In Texas, there were 17 such deaths from 2000 to 2012, according to a recent report. In 2019, the Prison Policy Initiative, a national think tank, put Missouri and Kansas on a list of 13 “famously hot states” that lack universal AC in prisons. Other states on the list included Texas, Alabama and Louisiana. “Prisons are mostly built from heat-retaining materials which can increase internal prison temperatures,” a policy analyst with the initiative wrote on its website. “Because of this, the temperatures inside prisons can often exceed outdoor temperatures.” Arkansas’ DOC said it has had near-universal AC since the 1970s. Writing in TIME in 2016, lawyers for relatives of Texas prisoners who died of heat stroke noted that the Guantánamo Bay detention center, which houses suspected terrorists, also has AC. Local prisoners say the need for AC is urgent. “It’s hard for a lot of us to breathe at times,” a Missouri prisoner, who says he filed a grievance after the AC at his facility stopped working in July, wrote to The Star. “Something has to be done. Quick!” Maximum security housing units at the Jefferson City Correctional Center sit below dormitory-style housing at the minimum security Algoa Correctional Center. AP file photo Prison officials in Missouri say expanding air conditioning to each of its facilities would be wonderful, but that it would require approval and appropriations from lawmakers. And it would come with a hefty price tag, with the DOC estimating it would cost between $13 million and $55 million depending on the facility to install air conditioning. Other prisoners are housed in buildings that were constructed more than a century ago, with infrastructure that is “not conducive to air conditioning installation,” said DOC spokeswoman Karen Pojmann. State Rep. Kimberly-Ann Collins, a Democrat from St. Louis, said prisons that are too old to have AC installed should be closed. “That is a signal that these are not facilities that we should be housing people because then we’re contributing to … factors that could lead them to early death,” Collins said. NEW PRISON AIR CONDITIONING WOULD COST MILLIONS Of Missouri’s 18 prisons, seven are fully air conditioned, while six have partial AC. There is no AC at the other five: Algoa, Moberly Correctional Center, Northeast Correctional Center in Pike County, Ozark Correctional Center in Webster County and Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron. There are plans, though, to move prisoners at Western to the smaller, nearby Crossroads Correctional Center, which is more modern and has AC, thanks to a decline in the prison population in recent years, according to the DOC. Lori Curry, executive director of the nonprofit Missouri Prison Reform, said she gets complaints from prisoners every summer about the heat and a lack of ice. “They need new ice machines at all facilities,” Curry said. “In an ideal world, I would like to see air conditioning in all the facilities. But immediately, I think ice machines could be purchased and are not too expensive.” Aerial view of the Western Missouri Correctional Center, foreground, and the Crossroads Correctional Center, rear. Rich Sugg [email protected] Prisoners can get a pitcher of ice three times a day — if they have the means to purchase the larger container from the commissary. Otherwise they have a cup. Curry said some men who only have a cup have been known to use an empty potato chip or cereal bag to get more ice than a cup would hold. Collins, the state representative, said she supports capital improvement funding for ice machines and air conditioning. “You would think that ice would be accessible for those guys all day, every day,” she said. Though constituent complaints are up, the DOC said it has not seen any heat-related hospitalizations this year among prisoners. In an email, Pojmann, DOC’s spokeswoman, also said no deaths attributed to heat have been recorded in the past five years. “All facilities are equipped with large industrial fans, misting fans, sprinkling stations, cold drinking water and ice machines, and additional ice machines and water-spraying fans have been purchased this year in anticipation of the heat,” she wrote. “Offenders have access to cold water in coolers in common areas and running water in their cells and are encouraged to stay hydrated.” Additionally, Pojmann said DOC’s new medical provider, Centurion, has protocols in place for when temperatures surpass 90 degrees, which include additional checks on prisoners who are elderly, chronically ill or taking certain medication. Tim Cutt, executive director of the Missouri Corrections Officers Association, which represents about 4,000 officers and sergeants, said he has heard officers comment on the heat, but none have filed complaints over it. “I’ve never seen anybody get heat exhaustion … staff wise,” Cutt said. “Now inmates, they’ll get out there and they’ll play handball or basketball or something like that and they’ll get overheated.” In April, a woman married to a prisoner brought up the lack of AC at a legislative hearing for a bill that would have created a DOC oversight committee. In response, the DOC pointed out that “some Missouri public schools are not air conditioned.” Expanding or installing AC at five of the state’s facilities is on a pending capital improvements list, Pojmann said. DOC estimates the projects would cost $55 million at Farmington, $26 million at Moberly, $18 million at Northeast, $17 million at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center and $13 million at Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center. OLDER KANSAS PRISONS HARDER TO COOL A mother in the Kansas City region said her son, who was convicted of crimes such as aggravated battery, is “just boiling” at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility in central Kansas. When she sees him on video calls, his face is red as he sweats profusely through his shirt. “I know they broke the law, I know they made a bad choice,” said the mother, who asked not to be identified out of fear her son could face retaliation. “Prison is punishment, but they should still be treated humanely.” Six Kansas facilities have AC in all units: Lansing Correctional Facility, El Dorado Correctional Facility, Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex, Larned Correctional Mental Health Facility, Topeka Correctional Facility and Wichita Work Release Facility. Others have partial AC, according to KDOC: Norton Correctional Facility’s east unit is equipped with AC, though its central unit is not. Ellsworth Correctional Facility’s east unit has AC, but is currently closed, and other areas do not. Hutchinson Correctional Facility and Winfield Correctional Facility do not have AC. Walls of the Hutchinson Correctional Facility. Bo Rader The Wichita Eagle file photo “One of the facilities without air conditioning was originally built in 1895,” Randall Bowman, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections, wrote in an email. “As a result, our options for retrofitting the facility with a modern HVAC system are limited.” Liberation Lit, a nonprofit that sends books to prisoners in Missouri and Kansas, recently called on KDOC to provide fans and air conditioning to residents. Bowman said the agency takes all concerns seriously and called the safety of staff and residents its “top priority.” In facilities without AC, the DOC uses evaporative coolers and industrial fans, and ensures that employees and prisoners stay hydrated. KDOC has not had any heat-related incidents that required outside care or hospitalization this year, Bowman said. Last year, KDOC ordered an assessment to examine its buildings’ age and conditions, which will include an analysis of its HVAC systems, Bowman said. When that’s done, the agency plans to brief policy makers and legislators. ‘HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE THIS?’ Ricky Kidd spent most of his 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit at Missouri facilities with air conditioning. But he was among the prisoners moved in 2019 from Crossroads, which had AC, to one that does not: Western, where Kidd said the heat was “brutal” and “sweltering.” “You feel like you’re suffocating,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘Man, how am I going to survive this?’” Kidd would sweat through several shirts. Men passed out and threw up because of the excessive temperatures, he said. Some slipped on the “sweating” floors, falling to the ground, he recalled. The man incarcerated at Algoa said the same thing happens there. Meanwhile, Kidd said, Western sold 9-inch fans that put out more noise than air. Prisoners took the grates off the fans so they worked better, but that, Kidd remembered, violated facility rules. Some guards confiscated altered fans, while sympathetic ones turned a blind eye to it. Kevin Strickland brought home belongings from prison, including this electric fan, which still has his prisoner identification on it. Jill Toyoshiba [email protected] Kevin Strickland, who spent more than 40 years in numerous Missouri prisons for a triple Kansas City murder he did not commit, held one of those fans close to his sweaty face during blistering summers. He recalled that guards would not let men return to housing units without their shirts on, even though it was “100 degrees inside.” “Attitudes were bad up in there because the heat made people irritable,” Strickland said. In a phone interview earlier this month, a man serving time for a robbery conviction at Western said though the fans only blow “hot air,” some prisoners get into fights over them. DOC has a fan program, he said, but not everyone qualifies. “Constant heat. Constant sweat,” he said. “You go to the chow hall and you don’t feel like eating.” While fans might provide relief, they “will not prevent heat-related illness” when temperatures reach the high 90s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Exposure to air conditioning for even a few hours a day will reduce the risk for heat-related illness,” the CDC advises on its website. Climate change is expected to intensify summer heat in the coming years. Kansas and Missouri fall into an “extreme heat belt” where temperatures are expected to reach 125 degrees by 2053, a study by the First Street Foundation found. Humid heat — which multiplies health risks — is also expected to worsen in eastern Kansas and western Missouri, according to a report released this month by Climate Central. Kidd urged corrections officials to provide AC for everyone, not just the administration. A prisoner’s living condition, he noted, can depend on where they are incarcerated. “How can I go to Potosi, where they house death-row inmates, and get air, but then if I happen to be at Western, I don’t?” asked Kidd, who in August 2019 was exonerated and walked out of Western. “It doesn’t make sense.” Ricky Kidd hugs his friend, Harriet Clark, after being freed from the Western Missouri Correctional Center on Aug. 15, 2019. DeKalb County Circuit Court Judge Daren Adkins ordered Kidd’s release, finding him innocent of the 1996 double murder. James Wooldridge [email protected] This story was originally published August 24, 2022, 5:00 AM. RELATED STORIES FROM KANSAS CITY STAR MISSOURI Prisoners’ relatives describe ‘atrocities’ behind bars, urge Missouri DOC oversight APRIL 13, 2022 1:02 PM GOVERNMENT & POLITICS KCK cop victimized ‘countless’ women, lawyers say. Kansas hinders them from suing AUGUST 01, 2022 3:02 PM KATIE MOORE 816-234-4312 Katie Moore started with The Star in 2019 and is a breaking news/enterprise reporter. She is a University of Kansas graduate and began her career as a reporter in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas. LUKE NOZICKA 816-234-4104 Luke Nozicka joined The Star in 2019 and is a member of the investigative team. In 2021, his reporting was credited with helping to free Kevin Strickland, a Kansas City man who spent four decades in prison for a triple murder he did not commit. The next year, Nozicka and two colleagues published a series of stories on racial discrimination within the Kansas City Police Department; months later, the Justice Department launched an investigation into the police department’s employment practices. Take Us With You Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. 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