Amid record heat, 24 Arizona prison units still lack air conditioning. A lawmaker has questions.

Filed 1h ago · Via Arizona Mirror · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A Republican state lawmaker has subpoenaed Arizona's corrections department for records on extreme heat after cooling systems failed this summer during the second-hottest meteorological summer on record, with Yuma logging 142 consecutive triple-digit days.

The Legislature had allocated tens of millions toward converting prison units to full air conditioning starting in 2023, but a 2025 budget cut of $57 million left the department with just $9.8 million, stalling the work. Twenty occupied units still rely on swamp coolers, fans, and ice, while guard offices and classrooms nearby stay air-conditioned and largely empty.

Research mapping temperatures at over 1,600 U.S. prisons found Arizona facilities among the hottest in the country, with one state complex recording nearly 114 degrees. A separate lawsuit over the department's health care system, now under a court-ordered receivership, is proceeding on a parallel track, though it does not directly address heat.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

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Somebody decided the guards' office needed cold air worse than the row of bunks fifteen feet away, and nobody with the checkbook seemed bothered by that math. The state found money for air conditioning once, then found a reason to take most of it back the very summer the thermometer set records. A plan that quietly stops at the cell door isn't really a heat plan, it's a paperwork exercise with a nice title.

Source: Read the original at Arizona Mirror → Scored: Relent · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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