‘Unbearable’ Heat in Uncooled Alabama Prisons: A Deepening Crisis as Summer Swelter Intensifies
ELMORE — Tiffany Montellano lies awake at night, unable to sleep, consumed by worry for her husband Andrew, 31, who is currently incarcerated at Elmore Correctional Facility just north of Montgomery. Her anxiety is not unfounded. A few days ago, during her lunch break, she received a disturbing call from Andrew, who had missed their usual evening call the night before. When she finally spoke with him, his words painted a terrifying picture of the conditions inside the un-air-conditioned, 200-person dormitory where he is housed.
“He told me the room wouldn’t stop spinning,” Montellano recalled, her voice carrying the weight of someone who has heard too many similar stories. “They had to hook him up to an IV. When you’re in a space with 200 people and no air conditioning, the heat doesn’t just make you uncomfortable — it becomes life-threatening.”
Montellano’s experience is not unique. Across Alabama, families of incarcerated individuals are describing conditions inside state correctional facilities that can only be described as intolerable. As climate change drives more frequent and intense heat waves, the consequences for those behind bars are becoming increasingly dire.
The State of Alabama’s Prison System and the Heat Crisis
Alabama operates 14 major correctional facilities, and according to Eddie Burkhalter, a researcher for the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice — a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to reforming the state’s justice system — none of these facilities have universal air conditioning. The implications of this deficiency are profound.
“Housing humans in extreme heat in Alabama and across the South — it’s torture for people,” Burkhalter stated plainly. His assessment reflects not only the immediate suffering of incarcerated individuals but also the broader failure of the state to uphold basic human rights standards in its correctional institutions.
The Alabama Department of Corrections, when contacted for comment on these conditions, did not respond. This silence speaks volumes about the institutional neglect that has characterized the state’s approach to prison conditions for decades.
A System Under Federal Scrutiny
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice delivered a damning assessment: the conditions in Alabama prisons, which operate at approximately 160 percent of their designed capacity, were unconstitutional. Federal courts have repeatedly agreed with this evaluation, issuing orders directing the state to improve staffing levels, mental health services, and other critical operational aspects of its prison system.
Yet despite these judicial mandates and federal oversight, conditions continue to deteriorate. Even as the state directs COVID-19 relief funds toward the construction of a new mega-prison — the 4,000-bed Governor Kay Ivey Correctional Complex — the 27,000 individuals currently incarcerated in Alabama’s facilities continue to endure extreme heat without adequate relief.
The health consequences of these conditions are severe and well-documented. A 2023 study analyzing data from public and private prisons across the United States from 2001 to 2019 demonstrated that extreme heat events led to significant increases in overall mortality, cardiac-related deaths, and suicides among incarcerated populations.
“These findings suggest that warm temperatures are associated with increased mortality in prisons,” the researchers concluded. “Yet this vulnerable population’s risk has largely been overlooked.” This oversight is particularly troubling given the growing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events as the climate continues to warm.
Personal Accounts of Suffering
Christopher Fritz, who spent two years at St. Clair Correctional Facility northeast of Birmingham, still carries the psychological scars of his experience. Every summer, the rising temperatures trigger memories of the unbearable conditions he endured.
“When the heat index was over 100 degrees, they would give us a six-ounce cup of Gatorade twice a day,” Fritz recounted. “That was their idea of dealing with the heat, but it was unbearable.” His testimony reveals not only the inadequacy of official responses but also the dehumanizing nature of treating extreme heat exposure as a manageable inconvenience rather than a serious health emergency.
Fritz witnessed numerous men fainting from the heat during his incarceration. Elderly residents were particularly vulnerable, with some unable to even get out of their beds due to the overwhelming temperatures. “Some of them couldn’t even get out of the bed because of the heat,” he said, emphasizing how the most vulnerable members of the prison population bear the heaviest burden of institutional neglect.
Matthew Gray Bush, who has maintained correspondence with several incarcerated Alabamians for years, recently received a message from a friend housed at Limestone Correctional Facility near Huntsville. The message described a 60-year-old dorm-mate who had been taken to the prison’s healthcare facility three times, only to be sent back to the uncooled dorm each time.
“I’m a little worried this morning because he has been taken to healthcare three times, and they keep sending him back to the dorm,” the message read. “He needs to go to the free world hospital.” Later, the correspondent confirmed that the elderly man had been diagnosed with heat stroke — a severe, life-threatening medical condition — by prison medical staff, yet he remained in the same dangerous environment.
The Broader Implications for Rehabilitation and Community Safety
The impact of extreme heat in prisons extends far beyond the immediate suffering of incarcerated individuals. As Burkhalter emphasized, the overwhelming majority of those currently in Alabama’s correctional facilities will eventually be released. The conditions they endure during incarceration directly affect what kind of individuals they become upon returning to their communities.
“Do we want them to return shell-shocked? More addicted to drugs? With serious medical conditions? Do we want them to be wracked with PTSD and anxiety and depression?” Burkhalter asked. “Because that’s what happens when you torture people.” These questions highlight the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Alabama’s correctional policy: the state claims to pursue rehabilitation and public safety, yet its practices actively undermine both goals by subjecting incarcerated people to inhumane conditions.
Montellano, reflecting on her daily anxiety about her husband’s well-being, articulated this contradiction clearly: “They have to go in the shower and dip their towels in water and wrap it around their bodies because it’s so hot,” she explained. “Exhaust fans meant to remove hot air from the building are often broken. Everybody takes the sheets off their bed because they’re so drenched in sweat. So they either lay on the cold metal bed frame or lay on the floor.”
These descriptions of basic survival strategies — using wet towels, removing bedding, lying on metal frames or the floor — reveal a system that has failed at its most fundamental obligation: to provide safe and humane conditions for those in its custody.
Climate Change and the Worsening Crisis
As climate scientists continue to document the accelerating pace of global warming, the situation in Alabama’s prisons is likely to worsen significantly. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2022 State Climate Summaries noted that while Alabama had historically escaped some of the more extreme temperature increases experienced elsewhere, recent years have shown a clear warming trend.
“Temperatures in Alabama have not risen since the beginning of the 20th century, one of the few areas globally to experience no net warming,” the NOAA report stated. “However, recent years have been very warm, and the warmest consecutive five-year interval was the most recent, 2016 to 2020. Under a higher emissions pathway, historically unprecedented warming is projected during this century.”
This projection has profound implications for prison conditions. As extreme heat events become more frequent and intense, the health risks for incarcerated individuals will multiply accordingly — unless the state takes decisive action to address the fundamental infrastructure deficiencies in its correctional facilities.
The Path Forward
Addressing the crisis of extreme heat in Alabama’s prisons requires more than temporary measures or limited funding allocations. It demands comprehensive infrastructure investment, including universal air conditioning installation, structural improvements to ventilation systems, and enhanced healthcare capacity to respond to heat-related medical emergencies.
Equally important is the need for increased transparency and accountability from the Alabama Department of Corrections. The department’s failure to respond to inquiries about prison conditions suggests a culture of institutional secrecy that prevents meaningful public oversight and reform efforts.
For families like Tiffany Montellano’s, the stakes could not be higher. Every unanswered phone call, every missed visit, every report of heat-related illness represents a potential tragedy that could have been prevented. The state’s obligation to those it imprisons — and to the communities to which those individuals will eventually return — demands nothing less than immediate and sustained action to address this growing humanitarian crisis.
As the climate continues to warm and summer temperatures reach new extremes, the question is not whether Alabama’s prison conditions will become more dangerous — they already are. The question is whether the state will act before more lives are lost to a crisis that is entirely preventable.