High indoor temperatures combined with a lack of cold drinking water and cooling fans in three of the state’s prisons during the summer months is risking the health of incarcerated individuals and may violate their constitutional rights, according to a new report from the correction ombuds.
The report, released Wednesday, details observations from the three facilities without air conditioning — Hartford Correctional Center, Bridgeport Correctional Center and Osborn Correctional Institution — during late June and July. Combined, the three facilities house about 2,700 people.
Correction Ombuds DeVaughn Ward said in the report that his office has received multiple complaints from incarcerated people and their families about the heat. One mother who wrote to the ombuds on July 24 complained that her son, who was housed at Osborn, had contracted scabies and was being frequently kept in his cell on lockdown without a fan or air conditioning.
“The officers come around every few hours with semi-cold water to cool off during this heat wave, but it’s still uncomfortably hot,” she wrote.
Another mother who said her son was housed at Osborn wrote that the heat was exacerbating her son’s asthma and making it difficult for him to breathe.
On a 96-degree day in late June, Ward visited Bridgeport Correctional Center and found that overcrowding was forcing people to be housed in the facility’s gym, where there were no fans and no ice water. Other blocks where incarcerated people lived were also lacking water and fans.
“In other units, fans were observed stored under stairwells and not deployed despite high temperatures and residents being out of their cells, and some fans that were in use were covered in debris,” Ward wrote.
When Ward returned to Bridgeport Correctional for an unannounced visit in early July, more than fifty people were being housed in the gym because of a plumbing problem. The gym had a single small fan and one cooler with “minimal” water for drinking.
A visit in late July found water and ice available across the facility, and the department had purchased fans and distributed them across the facility.
In Osborn Correctional Institution on June 24, certain housing blocks recorded temperatures above 90 degrees, with several more hitting temperatures above 80 degrees. During a second visit a few days later, Ward reported seeing drinking water in some blocks but not in others. Incarcerated individuals also told him that staff members would turn fans off “as a form of retaliation.”
Ward warned in his report that extreme heat conditions could be viewed by a court as a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment, particularly in light of a recent case filed in a district court in Texas claiming that excessive heat in the prisons there may violate the constitutional rights of prisoners. The case is still ongoing.
The State of Connecticut has already approved two HVAC projects at Bridgeport Correctional Center and Hartford Correctional Center, which are scheduled to be completed in 2027. But at Osborn, where estimates for the cost of retrofitting the institution hover between $76 million and $85 million, the state has opted to expand the use of generator-powered air conditioning units instead of investing in a complete overhaul.
In a statement to the Connecticut Mirror, Department of Correction Spokesperson Andrius Banevicius said that Commissioner Angel Quiros had received the report and was preparing a response. He said that while upkeep of the “aging infrastructure” in the prison buildings “presents significant and costly challenges,” the department was in the process of carrying out the upgrades Ward mentioned in his report.
Ward recommended that the Department of Correction develop maximum and minimum temperatures for the facilities, keep hourly temperature logs, ensure that fans are fixed before the summer months, allow people in custody to take more showers during heat waves and make sure that bedding and laundry are washed weekly to lower the risk of skin infections and funguses.
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
