3 August 31 - september 6, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ FLORIDA CRUEL PUNISHMENT FAMILIES DEMAND ACTION ON RECORD “HEAT CRISIS” IN FLORIDA PRISONS. BY ALEX DELUCA I t’s been the hottest summer on record in cities across Florida and beyond. Average global temperatures reached unprecedented levels, and Miami followed suit, topping a heat index of 100 degrees every afternoon for 46 straight days, a streak that shattered previous records. Families of those jailed in Florida prisons have been protesting the facilities’ lack of air conditioning for years, but the record tem- peratures have reignited the debate over whether AC-less incarceration in the Sun- shine State amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Activists and inmates’ relatives plan to gather outside City Hall in Orlando around 11 a.m. on August 26 to bring attention to the is- sue — what they describe as an ongoing “heat crisis” in the state’s mostly AC-less prisons and jails. Prison reform advocate Connie Ed- son, who is organizing the rally, says the scorching conditions in state correctional fa- cilities warrant an emergency response in the statehouse. “We want legislators to be humane and fund the AC program to all facilities now, not next session,” Edson said in a press release. “We are reaching a heat index well close to 110 degrees in some of these facilities,” Edson told New Times last month. “This is a crisis, and this is something that needs to be looked at right now.” Last month, New Times spoke with several people whose loved ones have endured ex- treme heat inside state prisons this summer. One woman said her boyfriend described feeling “cooked” alive in his prison unit. An- other prisoner relayed that he was so drenched in sweat and afflicted by the heat that he could not sleep most nights. While Florida’s newer prisons are de- signed with AC, many facilities were built be- fore air conditioning became commonplace. Today, only about one-fourth of the housing units in Florida prisons have AC units, many reserved for sick, mentally ill, pregnant, and geriatric inmates. Less than half of the state’s 50 large-scale prison facilities have dorms that the department describes as “mostly air- conditioned.” The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) confirmed last August that Lowell Correctional Institution — the largest women’s prison in the state — had begun a long-term pilot program testing out cooling units at the facility. The project, tracked by Edson, is deploying “portable evaporative air coolers,” a low-cost alternative to the refrigerant-based air conditioning used in traditional window-mounted and central AC systems. “FDC is closely monitoring their perfor- mance to ensure that they effectively cool the environment while keeping inmates and staff safe,” the department previously told New Times. However, according to Edson, lack of funding from the state has hampered the de- partment’s decision on the program’s pro- spective expansion. This past legislative session, Florida passed a bill that increased the cap from $2.5 million to $32 million on the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund, a fund generated from canteen sales and telephone commission meant to benefit Florida prisoners. Edson says not a dime was allotted for air conditioning or coolers. Edson worries that while money might be allocated toward vital programs like educa- tional services and substance abuse treat- ment, few people will want to staff the programs in a facility lacking air condition- ing. In recent years, state prisons have been dealing with severe staffing issues and attri- tion among correctional employees, partly owing to the dilapidated conditions in aging prisons. “Legislators allocated money for programs,” Edson said in the media release. “However, if we don’t have the staff or volunteers to oversee these programs, it won’t happen.” Earlier this year, State Rep. Dianne Hart of Tampa filed a bill (House Bill 357) requiring prison units to have air conditioning or cool- ing systems. Existing units that are incompat- ible with AC or cooling system installation would have been required to have exhaust fans and air circulators. The bill died in the legislature in May. The cost for an evaporative cooler ranges from a few hundred to more than $6,000 on the retail market, depending on the size and efficiency of the unit. Installing a few swamp coolers at each Florida Department of Cor- rections’ AC-lacking correctional institution could cost several hundred thousand dollars. A more extensive project to install multiple, high-quality coolers in each facility could run into the millions, though the expense would be a small fraction of central-AC installation. | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS A pilot program to test out low-cost evaporative coolers, AKA swamp coolers, is underway in Florida prisons. Photo by Antonio Garcia Recena/Getty Images ▼ MIAMI DUMPSTER FYRE BILLY MCFARLAND PEDDLES VIP TICKETS FOR FYRE FEST 2.0 AFTER PRISON STINT. BY ALEX DELUCA L ooking to maybe see a concert some- where in the Caribbean next year? Eat a sad excuse for a cheese sandwich? Risk getting swindled in the process? We’ve found the perfect event for you. In a video posted on Instagram, Fyre Festi- val’s fraudulent founder Billy McFarland — outfit- ted in a luxurious white robe — announced that he would be launching an ambitious round two of the failed festival to take place at the end of next year. “Fyre Festival II tickets are officially on sale,” McFarland said in the August 21 video. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here, and it really all started during a seventh-month stint in solitary confinement.” While a website for the event vaguely indi- cates its venue as “the Caribbean” (which nota- bly includes more than a dozen countries), it does not provide a musical lineup or other key details. The website claims that the first round of tickets, which went for $499 dollars, are “sold out.” McFarland is apparently selling several more tiers of tickets for the event, ranging from $799 to a whopping $7,999. Founded by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, the would-be luxury music festival captured the country’s morbid fascination in the spring of 2017 after it was canceled amid mass chaos. While guests were promised two weekends of snazzy villas and the “best in music, culture, art, and food” on the Bahamian island of Great Ex- uma for tickets ranging from $1,200 to a super- VIP $250,000 package, they instead arrived at a semi-constructed disaster that evoked Lord of the Flies and The Hunger Games. Hundreds of attendees flew from Miami and arrived at a concert site scattered with leaky white tents, problematic security, and scarce food and water. The advertised headliners, in- cluding Blink-182, Migos, and Tyga, never per- formed. And, of course, there was the world’s most depressing cheese-on-bread meal that be- came enshrined on the internet (and as an NFT). The festival, which had been promoted on In- stagram by models like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski, many of whom did not initially dis- close that they had been paid to do so, was postponed in- definitely. The first flight back to Miami was delayed for hours due to issues with the flight’s manifest and was eventually canceled, leaving passengers stuck in the Exuma Airport terminal with no ac- cess to food, water, or air conditioning. At least one person reportedly passed out from the heat. In March 2018, McFarland, 26 years old at the time, was sentenced to six years in prison for de- frauding Fyre Festival investors and ordered to fork over $26 million. He has since been the sub- ject of numerous class action lawsuits and two documentaries about the events, Fyre Fraud on Hulu and Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened on Netflix, which famously featured Andy King (AKA Blowjob Guy), who was “fully prepared to suck dick” to solve the festival’s wa- ter problem. In his announcement this week on the sup- posed second incarnation of Fyre Festival, Mc- Farland claimed that in solitary confinement, he “wrote out this fifty-page plan of how to take the overall interest and demand in Fyre,” and his “ability to bring people from around the world together” in order to “make the impossi- ble happen.” McFarland said he had partnered with pro- duction companies to create “Fyre Festival: The Broadway Musical.” “We are targeting Fyre Festival for the end of next year, and in the meantime, we will be doing pop-ups and events across the world,” he said. “Guys this your chance to get in, this is everything I’ve been working towards. Let’s fucking go!” [email protected] “GUYS THIS YOUR CHANCE TO GET IN, THIS IS EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN WORKING TOWARDS.”
