From Truthout:
The cells don’t have any heat. So, they’re sleeping with their clothes on,” a woman named Regina told Truthout of her son’s experience in Hill Correctional Center in Illinois in early December. “They’re not heating the tiers. There’s no heat in the day room. There’s no heat outside the showers.… The water is cold. You can let it run for a little while and you may get a little warm. But it’s not enough.”
Regina has felt the cold in the prison firsthand. “It’s even cold in the visitor’s room,” she said. “I don’t have any hair right now, because I have cancer. So, I wear a head wrap or a hat, but I can’t wear it in there. Because you can’t have anything on your head.” She wrote three letters to the warden requesting a medical exemption, but never heard back. “So, I go in there with nothing on my head,” she said. “My head is freezing. But I want to see my son.”
As people across the country brace for upcoming cold weather, many of those set to suffer the most are incarcerated in prisons and jails. Each winter, people in old, drafty facilities shiver for months in their cells, struggling to function and fearing for their health. They have no control over cell temperature, and often little access to warm clothes or extra blankets. Inevitably, some outdated heating systems across the country will fail, leaving people in dangerously frigid temperatures. Continue reading >>>
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