Kentucky prisons often operate with outdated AC systems or experience power outages, which can trigger a rapid rise in temperature.
Brian Dawe, national director of the corrections officer advocacy group One Voice United, said prison temperatures can exceed 100 degrees in the summer.
"When you start increasing the temperatures in those facilities, it's not good for anybody," Dawe explained. "It increases the violence. It's a miserable set of conditions."
In previous statements to the media, the Kentucky Department of Corrections maintained that all its facilities have working air conditioning systems. In some states, judges have ruled that allowing extreme temperatures in prison is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment. However, most states have not mandated policies to address the issue.
Naseem Miller, senior editor for health at The Journalist’s Resource, said older adults are more likely to succumb to heat illness or have a chronic disease triggered by unrelenting heat.
"Another factor that makes incarcerated people more vulnerable is that the population in prisons is aging," Miller noted. "Aging makes you more vulnerable to extreme heat."
A 2023 study found that a 10-degree temperature increase from average summer temperatures in prison was associated with a more than 5% increase in prison deaths. Sweltering heat also increased the number of suicides in prisons by more than 20%.