Over the past 17 years, 22 people imprisoned in Texas have been killed by extreme heat.Īs summer comes to an end, incarcerated people at Max are preparing themselves for equally unbearable winter temperatures. prison population - are four times more likely to die from heat-related complications. People with severe mental illness - 15-20% of the R.I. Prolonged heat exposure can damage the central nervous and circulatory systems, and has long term effects on organ systems like the kidneys. In the last few weeks, prisoners have been subject to temperatures in the high 90s for days on end. Incarcerated people write of toxic mold, skin lesions, rodent infestation, contaminated water, abusive medical staff and correctional officers who are making hundreds of thousands in overtime pay.
Once COVID reached Max in November, it spread like wildfire, infecting 90% of the population within a month and killing an elderly incarcerated man. In fact, the number of people detained pretrial climbed by 20% between April and October that year. Despite months of protests, a petition, op-eds, and an action in which six medical professionals were arrested calling for preventative decarceration in light of the prison conditions, the state released only 76 people across the entire ACI. Department of Corrections’ massive failure to control the COVID outbreak in 2020. In 1977, Judge Raymond Pettine wrote that the building’s “antiquated” ventilation system “lowers resistance to disease.” His words foreshadowed R.I. A Rhode Island federal judge found Max unfit for habitation over four decades ago - yet the state never stopped condemning people to its brutal conditions. This is Rhode Island’s Maximum Security facility, where incarcerated people went on hunger strike last fall and again on August 22. Today, as Rhode Islanders shop and eat in Garden City’s air-conditioned, high-end stores, 292 human beings are trapped down the street in a solid brick building with no functioning ventilation or air conditioning systems.
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