At a Missouri Prison, Inmates Fear for Their Lives in Sweltering Cells
Without air conditioning, inmates are "literally trapped in a burning hot cell," according to a new lawsuit.
Inmates at a Missouri prison have filed a lawsuit claiming they're suffering from life-threatening extreme heat in their un-air-conditioned cells during the summer. The suit claims that the sweltering heat violates the Missouri Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"Without court intervention, it is not a question of whether someone will get sick and die due to heat-related conditions," the suit reads, "but rather when."
Algoa Correctional Center in Missouri is one of four prisons in the state where none of the housing units have air conditioning. And, due to the building's design, it is frequently hotter inside the prison than outside. Even at night, temperatures remain high because the building continues to release daytime heat. While the prison has some practices for helping inmates deal with extreme temperatures, the suit claims they are ineffective.
"Algoa's informal heat-mitigation practices include providing incarcerated people with limited access to ice in a cooler; access to warm showers; the option to purchase one small, personal fan; and unreliable, highly limited access to a few cooler rooms," the suit reads. "These practices are grossly inadequate…the ice in these small coolers is insufficient for the 100-plus people in each housing unit and runs out quickly. Not only is the amount insufficient, but it also melts within minutes."
The lawsuit includes vivid reports from several men incarcerated at Algoa. One man, who suffers from a medical condition that causes "mini strokes," claims that "the hotter the temperature, the more severe these strokes get. When it is hot out and my heart begins to race, I start having a mini stroke almost immediately," adding that he is "scared of what might happen if [he has] a bad stroke." Another inmate described the conditions as "if you were put in a coffin with a heat lamp in there."
Conditions for inmates in solitary confinement are particularly severe. Due to a lack of outlets in solitary confinement, inmates there are unable to use fans. "People are quite literally trapped in a burning hot cell," the suit reads. "During the summer, the floors in [solitary] are literally soaking wet from humidity and sweat."
Prisoners at Algoa are far from the only inmates without adequate temperature control during the summer months. Only about 30 percent of prisons in Texas, for example, are fully air-conditioned. According to legal documents related to a 2023 lawsuit, some prison units in Texas reached 149 degrees Fahrenheit in 2023.
