![]() ![]() Some of the facilities sit in the desert. Extreme heat is brutal inside the state’s overcrowded prisons, which typically lack proper ventilation and are built with materials that retain warmth. Like many parts of the world, California has experienced record-high temperatures in recent years. “It’s hard for them to answer a call for a cell fight.”Įighteen of California’s prisons-which incarcerate approximately 46,000 people in those facilities alone-are located in areas vulnerable to extreme heat, wildfires, or flooding, according to the report. “I really don’t see CDCR being ready for climate emergencies,” one survey respondent stated. ![]() To further fix climate-related problems, researchers said the state should divert money from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)’s more than $14 billion budget to expanding re-entry services and to bolstering heating, air conditioning, ventilation, shade, and backup generators in the state’s prisons. Officials should also prioritize releasing older people, those with certain medical conditions, people with mental illness, and those with physical and developmental disabilities. To address the issue, the report’s authors recommend the state close facilities most vulnerable to climate disasters and reduce the prison population by half. “If things would be otherwise, I would like to know.” “So far as I know, in the case of any natural disaster, the prison staff will close my room door and leave,” one respondent incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison said. Graduate students from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs produced the report for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Most said that if a climate emergency strikes, they believed prison staff would lock them in their cells and escape to safety. ![]() Incarcerated people in California are suffering from extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, and other effects of climate change, according to a new report out yesterday that surveyed more than 500 state prisoners between January and February. This story was originally published by The Appeal. Photograph Source: Anthony Albright – CC BY-SA 2.0 ![]()
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