Corrections officials say they are working to address heat concerns in prisons

Family members of incarcerated individuals, including mothers and spouses, testified in front of lawmakers in March saying their past criminal records, sometimes decades olds, meant they are kept from seeing loved ones who are currently incarcerated. (Photo by Brian Lyman)

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Prison advocacy groups warned they are getting “frantic calls” around rising temperatures inside facilities.

Corrections officials on Thursday said they are implementing measures to keep prison units under 85 degrees, the current state standard.

Nevada Department of Corrections Director James Dzurenda told the Nevada Board of Prison Commissioners, which includes Gov. Joe Lombardo, Attorney General Aaron Ford and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, that air conditioning units tend to “take a strain during summer months.”

NDOC is looking to replace some air conditioning compressors, which pump refrigerant into a system. Dzurenda didn’t specify how long it would take to replace.

“Right now I can attest that I don’t feel that there are any health or safety concerns,” he said.

NDOC didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Several people during public comment said while they appreciated the NDOC acknowledged the problem, they were still concerned about the well being of people who are incarcerated.

Southern Nevada saw record-breaking temperatures in June. Temperatures were more than 10 degrees higher than is normally in June, according to the National Weather Service.

“If we could have some transparency around what the plan is because we are getting frantic calls from the inside pretty much every day multiple times a day about the heat,” said Leslie Turner, an organizer with the Mass Liberation Project. “This same thing happened last summer. It’s kind of alarming to me that here we are again a year later having the same conversation.”

Prison officials in March warned they had seen significant increases to their utility costs. NDOC requested around $3 million from the Interim Finance Committee last month to cover projected shortfalls due to high electricity use.

During that June 13 meeting, NDOC Deputy Director Kristina Shea told lawmakers the department is working on capital improvements that would replace heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units “to bring the equipment up to standard” and help reduce energy costs.

Utility costs weren’t discussed at Thursday’s prison commissioners meeting.

Dzurenda said the current heat standard prisons can’t exceed is 85 degrees.

Even as the global climate crisis brings more extreme heat, the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that researches criminal justice policy, noted in a 2018 report that many prisons lack standards around heat.

In addition to replacing compressors, Dzurenda said if cells in prison units go higher than 85 degrees, “the unit will be shut down or the offenders will be moved out temporarily until the units are fixed.”

He didn’t specify where they would go and for how long.

The Current asked NDOC about the process of relocating people if part of prison facilities went higher than 85 degrees, but they didn’t respond.

In conversations with people who are incarcerated, Turner said they have questioned whether it is actually 85 degrees inside facilities.

“They are saying it feels like over 100 degrees and that makes sense,” Turner said. “I don’t know if you ever had your AC go out at home but 85 degrees is hot.”

Tina Turentine has a loved one at High Desert State Prison, which is located near Indian Springs, northwest of Las Vegas. She said she has heard people are putting wet T-shirts on their heads but “they are not relieving them.”

Jodi Hocking, the founder with the prison advocacy group Return Strong, said the group is also receiving calls from inmates about the heat. She said there should be an independent investigator who can go in and verify temperatures.

“There are other states that have volunteer investigators that come from stakeholder groups that are able to go in and have someone see if those temperatures are really true,” she said. “There is a distrust between what is happening on the ground and what is said from administration.”

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