Recently, a State Board unanimous voting To create long-awaited indoor heating standards for California workers. After final legal review, it would mean protections for millions of people working in warehouses, kitchens and other workplaces that are becoming dangerously hot as the climate warms.
However, the board made an explicit exception for jails and prisons. Just as the standards were about to be approved in March, the state Department of Finance withdrew its support for them, noting that the rules would hurt jails and prisons. Billions of dollarsTo protect regulations, the California Occupational Safety and Health Division, known as Cal/OSHA, Such features were excluded by standards.
For the record:
9:46 am July 9, 2024An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of legal scholar Sharon Dolovich.
Opponents of standards point to the high costs associated with installing and running cooling systems, giving workers more breaks and other ways to adapt to the heat. And adapting to climate change is indeed expensive. So phasing out prisons and jails might seem like a straightforward, practical way to cut the costs of regulation that will undoubtedly be expensive anyway.
However, research has shown that regulation can lead to savings of up to 100%. $875 million There’s a campaign every year to prevent heat-related injuries among California workers. And the threat is getting even more serious: Last summer hottest on recordAnd it could prove to be even hotter.
Excessive heat kills more people Compared to all other extreme weather events or natural disasters, however, these deaths are often difficult to recognise and often missed in official counts. Heat can also cause a range of illnesses and injuries, from kidney disorders, strokes and exhaustion to workplace accidents. And heat can make underlying health conditions worse.
In short, the need for indoor heat regulations is clear. Putting these regulations in place as early as possible could save lives, especially as the heat is getting the better of us.
Cal/OSHA has indicated that it may eventually develop separate standards for California’s jails and prisons. But it has taken nearly a decade to get even close to adopting indoor heating standards for other facilities. Given the high cost of cooling jails, the feeling that air conditioning is a “luxury,” and an inhumane belief that incarcerated people are not deserving of such care, it seems unlikely we will see separate heating standards for such facilities anytime soon.
Yet the threat of heat in California’s jails and prisons cannot be denied. Inmates are exposed to extreme heat for a variety of reasons, including the location of jails and prisons, the way they are constructed, their general lack of air conditioning and ventilation, the prevalence of health conditions among prisoners that can be worsened by heat, and the use of psychiatric medications that exacerbate the effects of heat. Incarcerated people are among the most vulnerable to climate change.
California has a moral and legal obligation to ensure that people in prison are protected from the heat. As legal scholar Sharon Dolovich has put it DetailedSociety’s right to imprison anyone is rooted in the “prison bargain” made by the state, which includes a “continuing positive obligation to meet the basic human needs” of prisoners. The constitutional prohibition of cruel punishment makes this duty “inconsistent.”
The state has failed to abide by this agreement. survey A survey of incarcerated people in California found that two-thirds of respondents had experienced extreme heat and that the state Plan of No steps have been taken for their safety.
Like climate adaptation, incarcerating people is expensive: in California it costs an estimated $1 billion.132,860 It costs a fine of one year from public money to keep a person in custody. If we cannot provide for the basic needs of those people, we are forced to release them.
The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently Calculation Closing five California prisons would save $1 billion a year. Road Map A project developed by Californians for a Responsible Budget could cover the costs of climate-proofing the remaining facilities. 13,000 The number of vacant beds is projected to increase further, but we have the capacity to do so.
Downsizing a dilapidated and bloated prison system is a sensible move for a financially-losing state. And as temperatures continue to rise, closing jails and prisons is a promising strategy for practical and ethical climate adaptation that won’t break the bank and will save lives.
Nicholas Shapiro is director of the Carceral Ecology Lab at UCLA. Bharat Jayaram Venkat is the director of the UCLA HEAT Lab.
