Jon Anthony Southards’ death is one of more than a dozen the past two months inside dangerously hot state-run prison and jails. More than two-thirds of those...
and commit funds to air conditioning. More than two-thirds of TDCJ’s prisons and jails, which house tens of thousands of inmates, lack air conditioning in most living quarters.analysis found at least 15 inmates died in June and July of unknown causes, of a reported heart attack or of cardiac arrest in facilities with little or no air conditioning on days temperatures reached at least 95 degrees.
In the last five years, the agency has added air conditioning to 3,598 beds, Hernandez said. She said there’s an active project this year that will add air conditioning to 5,861 beds, making a total of 9,459 beds with cooling. Southards did not have a heat-sensitivity score that would have given him priority placement for an air-conditioned bed, Hernandez said. His mother disputes this. His doctor said Southards had to be in an air-conditioned unit, his mother said, because he was taking depression medication — some of which can change the body’s response to heat — and had severe asthma.Southards was one of thousands of inmates without access to air conditioning in their living quarters.
He was raised in Fort Worth and spent time with his family in Forney when he could. Southards was incarcerated on and off during his adult life, but had rekindled his Christian faith recently, his mother said.
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