'Unlivable': Amid Florida heat, advocates decry lack of air conditioning in state prisons

When Dorothy Bing settles into bed in her Winter Haven home, comforted by air conditioning in mid-summer, she often thinks of her husband, Robert Bing.

Robert resides at DeSoto Annex, a state prison in Arcadia, where he is serving a life sentence. Like most of Florida’s prisons, DeSoto Annex lacks air conditioning in the living quarters. That makes summers difficult for prisoners, and especially so this year, as Florida and most of the country endure record heat.

“One of the common things that you'll hear among the family members is that if this was happening at dog shelters or animal shelters, the outrage and the outcry that you would hear from people in the community would be so great,” Dorothy Bing said. “But why is it that you have human beings locked up in cages, you know, per se, but there's no outcry for them? Because I have pets; I have cats. And I couldn't imagine leaving them in a condition like that.”

Many of Florida’s prisons “were constructed prior to air-conditioning being commonplace and were instead designed to facilitate airflow to provide natural cooling within them,” Paul Walker, Deputy Communications Director for the Florida Department of Corrections, said by email.

Walker wrote that the DOC offers air-conditioned housing units for “the most vulnerable inmate populations, including the infirmed, mentally ill, pregnant, and geriatric.”

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But Dorothy Bing and other advocates for incarcerated people say the vast majority of Florida’s approximately 85,000 prisoners spend much of their days — and their nights — in areas that lack cooling units. Denise Rock, founder and executive director of Florida Cares, a nonprofit that advocates for prisoners, described conditions in prisons as “unlivable.”

Polk County contains two state prisons: Polk Correctional Institution in Polk City and Avon Park Correctional Institution, just north of the Highlands County line near Frostproof.

While Walker said that older prisons were designed to allow air flow, the need for security limits the cooling capacity, Rock said. A typical cell holding two prisoners is 8 feet by 12 feet, she said, with a window about 6 inches high and 18 to 24 inches wide.

“It’s just a window with a screen, and it's not a screen like you or I have — it’s a thicker, metal screen, if you've seen those,” Rock said. “So there's not as much air coming through. There's no fans in those in those two-man cells, for example. So it is just absolutely, brutally hot in there right now. And unnecessarily so.”

Two men incarcerated at Polk Correctional Institution attested to the uncomfortable conditions they are enduring.

None of dorms with two-person cells have air conditioning, Richard Reagan, a prisoner at Polk CI, wrote in an email.

“They barely have ventilation!” Reagan wrote. “The heat in here is at an all time high, it seems. Even with the fans, I mean what’s a hair dryer put out? 100-110 degree air? That’s about what we live in. The humidity makes it seem much hotter.”

All prison dorms lacking air conditioning “use some form of climate control to mitigate heat, such as fans or exhaust systems, which create a high level of air exchange to cool the building,” Walker said by email. “These housing units also incorporate other fans, such as a ceiling or wall-mounted circulation fans.”

All housing units contain refrigerated water fountains, Walker wrote. He said that Florida’s prisons are audited and compliant with standards from the American Correctional Association regarding ventilation and heating and cooling systems.

The Department of Corrections offers advisories and distributes informational materials “to ensure that staff can recognize the symptoms of heat stroke and heat exhaustion and provide treatment,” Walker wrote.

All detention facilities operated by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the jails where suspects are held before trial, are fully air-conditioned, spokesperson Carrie Horstman said.

Providing a simulation

Florida Cares has been promoting its “Beat the Heat Challenge” to draw attention to the issue. The organization built a replica of a two-person cell and has taken it around the state, challenging people to spend three minutes in the compartment with the door closed.

“They can bear the heat conditions for those three minutes, but what we’ve found is that they come out and they're just really disappointed that — no matter what somebody's done — that we would choose to let people live in conditions that we wouldn't allow a dog to live in,” Rock said.

She pointed to an ordinance in Miami-Dade County that sets a maximum temperature of 85 degrees for indoor dog kennels. But she said temperatures can exceed that level in the county’s three prisons.

As part of the Beat the Heat campaign, Florida Cares asked citizens to text HEAT to 21333, which sends a message to Florida legislators. Rock cited two lawmakers, state Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, and Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, for supporting efforts to address the heat in prisons.

Bradley did not respond to a voicemail left with her office last week.

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Gene Mast resides in the “F” dorm at Polk CI, which he said contains some fans. In an email, Mast wrote that three of the dorm’s wing have just one floor fan — including his, which holds 40 men. Three other wings have two fans, he said.

“Needless to say, it is very hot in the dorm,” wrote Mast, 55.

Mast said he previously lived in another dorm built with pre-fabricated walls rather than block walls.

“I was in that dorm for several years and in the summertime, once the walls heat up during the day, it takes a very long time for them to cool, creating a very hot and humid atmosphere,” he wrote. “And again, there is not enough circulation or cooling due to a very limited number of fans in the dorm.”

Mast added: “I also heard a rumor through ‘inmate.com,’ which is what inmates call the rumor mill, that the warden was ordering fans for each wing … but they wouldn't be here until December. It helps to have a sense of humor in here!”

Reagan, 38, said the worst aspect of the heat is that it heightens the level of irritation, adding to an already volatile situation.

“It makes these summer days full of trepidation,” he wrote.

Limited access to AC

Dorothy Bing said that her husband avoids complaining about conditions in DeSoto Annex and doesn’t talk about the heat in the dorms. But she has noticed that he calls her less often during the summer because the prison’s phones are in an area that gets particularly hot.

Mast mentioned recent deaths of two inmates, one in his 40s and another in his 70s, and wondered if heat could have been a factor. He wrote that another man had a stroke about a month ago.

The Department of Corrections reports prisoner deaths on its website, but it isn’t clear how promptly the lists are updated. As of Tuesday, the most recently reported death for Polk CI was from June 2022, and the latest for Avon Park CI was from January.

Some prisons do contain buildings with air conditioning. Reagan is a leader of a faith program at Polk CI, giving him access to the Faith-Based Dormitory, which has air conditioning in its day room, he said.

The chapel, the medical building and some education buildings at Polk CI have cooling systems, Mast wrote, but prisoners must have limited access to them.

Rock said that some prisoners rarely or never enter the air-conditioned areas of their facilities. She said only those who receive visitors are allowed in the visitation area.

“So those respite care places don't really exist because they can't get to them,” Rock said.

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In late July, an assistant warden and other officers visited Mast’s dorm and delivered four, five-gallon containers of ice water, Mast wrote, “which was greatly appreciated by all. There are approximately 215 inmates in my dorm, and the water coolers were emptied pretty fast, but those that did get the ice water enjoyed it.”

A Ledger reporter had sent inquires to the Department of Corrections about conditions at the prison, and Mast wondered if the unexpected delivery had resulted from the press attention.

Mast also said that prison officials gave residents permission to wear Class C uniforms — shorts and a T-shirt — for the time being. Prisoners normally must wear their Class A uniforms throughout the day, consisting of long pants, a T-shirt, a uniform shirt, socks and shoes.

The Department of Corrections has temporarily lifted uniform restrictions throughout the system, allowing inmates to wear Class C uniforms, Communications Director Kayla McLaughlin confirmed.

Testing portable coolers

Florida Cares has lobbied the Department of Corrections for more fans and for portable, evaporative air coolers in prisons. The department reported installed three units last summer at Lowell Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Marion County, as part of what Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon called a long-term pilot program.

The department is still testing the coolers at Lowell CI, McLaughlin said.

“FDC is closely monitoring their performance to ensure that they effectively cool the environment while keeping inmates and staff safe,” she said in an email.

Rock said that prisoners in some other states are allowed to have personal fans, but cells in Florida’s prisons lack electrical outlets. Florida Cares would like the Department of Corrections to approve the use of battery-powered fans.

Rock said she raised the issue with Dixon’s predecessor, Mark Inch, and he said it would be unfair to allow fans and batteries only for inmates who could afford them.

“And I just think that that's ridiculous,” Rock said. “I mean, we allow some people to buy movies, while other people can't. So why would we not allow them to have personal fans?”

Rock said she hasn’t yet raised the issue with Dixon.

Bing said that her husband and other prisoners at DeSoto Annex completed a walkathon in June inside the prison to raise money through outside pledges for the purchase of fans.

“That's how bad the situation is,” Bing said. “They're like, ‘If the state's not going to provide it, we're going to raise the money for it.’”

As of Tuesday, Bing said, the men had not yet been able to buy the fans because of “red tape.”

Florida’s prisons do have air conditioning in some sections, such as chapels and visitation areas. But even the visitation center has been warm during recent visits with her husband, Dorothy Bing said.

“I know, for myself, when I go in, some of the guys that work in the VP area, which is the visitation park, we try to do things like we purchase popsicles for them while they're working, or drinks,” she said, “whatever they need while they're there to kind of help them out.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Advocates: Lack of air conditioning makes state's prisons 'unlivable'