6 August 28 - september 3, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? Life inside a South Florida prison with no air conditioning. BY ALEX DELUCA AND ANTHONY COBB D uring Florida’s blistering sum- mer months, Morin C.* says the heat in his prison cell becomes so sticky and op- pressive, he sometimes showers seven times a day just to cope. The 41-year-old is incarcerated at Everglades Correctional Institution (ECI), a men’s state prison located on the edge of the Everglades in west Miami-Dade County that — like most Florida state prisons — lacks universal air conditioning. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, which he says makes the stifling, mostly air-conditionless en- vironment feel even more stifling during the summer. Most days, he skips walking to the dining hall for lunch and dinner to avoid the sweltering heat. “Avoidance has been my way of survival,” Morin says. “Yet there al- ways comes a time when a walk out- side is inevitable.” Despite our summers getting warmer — last year was the hottest on record — most Florida state prison housing units remain devoid of universal air conditioning. That includes ECI’s, which houses more than 1,600 men. New Times spoke with six men incarcerated at ECI about what it’s like to live through the state’s notori- ously hot summers in air-condition- less cells. They described being perpetually drenched in sweat and battling dehydration and other heat- related illnesses. [Editor’s note: *To safeguard their identities, the incar- cerated men quoted in this story are identified by their first names.] As Florida endures another scorching summer, with heat indexes topping 110 de- grees in some areas this past July, the men say conditions inside the prison, which has cool- ing units installed in “certain areas,” accord- ing to a Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) spokesperson, have become increas- ingly unbearable. Kemar R.*, 45, who has spent 15 years be- hind bars, says he attempts to cool down by wearing minimal clothing. Others say they’ve tried putting a bag over the window to chan- nel airflow while they sleep. But for many, relief is fleeting. “I know from personal experience that in- mates survive the brutal heat differently,” Ke- mar says. “But how we’re going to survive the next heatwave or the increasing tempera- tures in the years to come is going to be a question of humanity.” Cooling Plans Stalled Air conditioning is the single most effective method for keeping indoor temperatures safe. Still, most prisons, including many in the hottest states across the South, including Florida, aren’t fully air-conditioned. A recent Reuters investigation found that nearly half of state prisons across 29 U.S. states have “partial or no air conditioning in housing units.” A 2022 USA Today review of state prison systems found that 44 states lack universal air conditioning. By comparison, nearly 90 percent of U.S. homes use it. Most Florida prisons were built decades ago, long before AC was commonplace. Only 25 percent of prison housing units have AC, with most units set aside for vulnerable groups like the sick, mentally ill, pregnant, and elderly, the FDOC reports. The lack of air conditioning is just one of the major challenges confronting the FDOC — and one of the issues prison-reform advo- cates have long sought to address. In 2020, after Denise Rock, executive di- rector of the inmate-advocacy group Florida Cares, lobbied then-FDOC secretary Julie Jones to stock cooling towels and personal fans for prisoners, the corrections depart- ment began selling the towels and moisture- wicking shirts at the canteen, where prisoners buy snacks, personal hygiene items, and other items. And in 2022, following several years of pressure from prison-reform advocate Con- nie Edson, the state began testing a portable AC unit at Lowell Correctional In- stitution, the state’s largest women’s prison in Ocala. The long-term pilot program deployed “portable evapo- rative air coolers,” a low-cost alter- native to the refrigerant-based air conditioning used in traditional window-mounted and central AC systems. However, the program came to an end after FDOC Secretary Ricky Dixon appeared to dismiss the cool- ers as a long-term solution. “These portable units and some band-aid approaches we’ve tried.... Even the [inmate] population doesn’t like them,” Dixon reportedly told a legis- lative committee in fall 2023, refer- encing the noise and moisture they create. Since then, efforts to bring more air conditioning into the state’s pris- ons have mostly stalled. In 2023, the state hired consulting firm KPMG to craft a 20-year master plan for the prison system. The firm’s 134-page report broke down immediate maintenance needs and found that more than one-third of state prison facilities were in “critical” or “poor” condition, and that most FDOC dormitories required retrofitting to comply with current ventilation standards. The report estimated that bringing Florida prisons up to date with heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, window replacements, and electrical upgrades would cost $582 million. In 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis ap- proved $100 million a year for 30 years to fix the troubled prison sys- tem — a small fraction of the more than $3 billion immediately needed. Earlier this year, Edson part- nered with Horizon Communities Corp., a nonprofit that runs faith-based program- ming inside Florida prisons, to seek funding in the state budget for a pilot program to in- stall AC in correctional institutions where Horizon runs its faith-based programs, in- cluding ECI. But while lawmakers in the House and Senate earmarked $300,000 for the initiative in the 2025-26 state budget, De- Santis vetoed the funding in late June as part of a $567 million budget cut. “I’m floored. I can’t believe he turned it down,” Edson, who has spent half a decade working on the issue, told Florida Politics in July. “We’re talking about what’s humane and what’s inhumane, and this is the most inhu- mane thing ever.” DeSantis’ office did not respond to New Times’ request for comment. | METRO | Illustration by Tom Carlson / tomcarlsondesign.com. Prisoner reference by RDNE Stock Project / pexels.com >> p7
