University of Wisconsin-Madison students and advocates called for government regulation to address extreme heat in all corrections facilities across the state at a press conference Wednesday.
UW-Madison Capstone students held the press conference to bring attention to the growing crisis of heat vulnerability in Wisconsin prisons.
In Wisconsin, prison temperatures can reach as high as 97 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. Temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit can show a 20% increase in violent interactions in prison.
“The walls sweat, and the paint peels,” James Morgan, lead organizer for criminal justice reform advocacy group MOSES, said at Wednesday’s press conference. He added that the conditions inside the state’s prisons “cause mental, physical and emotional harm,” and stressed that prisoners are human beings, not just “violent criminals.”
Shar-Ron Buie, associate director of JustDane, a nonprofit organization that advocates for previously incarcerated people, said the unreasonably high temperatures in Wisconsin prisons “transcends mere discomfort.” Buie voiced that correct temperatures in prison are not a luxury but necessities for basic survival.
The environment becomes more violent and illnesses become more prevalent under high temperatures, which correlates with higher rates of heat-related deaths. Wisconsin prisoners, however, do not get a choice in their climate.
“Temperatures are controlled from a centralized location, often arbitrarily and capriciously decided on by the officer,” Buie said at Wednesday’s press conference. Even when prisoners attempt to block air vents, Buie said there is little escape from the unbearable heat.
WISDOM Transformational Justice Campaign Coordinator Mark Rice touched on his own experience in the Wisconsin prison system and said “forcing people to live in extreme heat is a form of torture.”
James Wilborn, a close colleague of Rice, died in the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility in 2015. While Rice and other activists said that heat exhaustion contributed to Wilborn’s death, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) Communications Director Beth Hardtke told The Daily Cardinal in a statement Nov. 21 there were zero heat-related deaths in Wisconsin DOC facilities since 2013.
The DOC declined to comment on Wilborn’s individual cause of death.
Rice attributed prisoner maltreatment to aggressive rhetoric and monetary reasons. The dehumanizing narrative about prisoners results in government and taxpayer opposition for further prison funding. But this does not diminish the need for safe prison environments, he said.
Although Hardtke said the DOC is planning air tempering projects for multiple Wisconsin facilities, she acknowledged that most DOC buildings are still not universally air conditioned.
