HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — Taj Mahon-Haft is spending his time outside raising awareness of his time inside Virginia state prison facilities.
“Everything is great because everything is compared relatively to a decade of isolation, deprivation, and loneliness,” Mahon-Haft said of how he feels after his release. “You’re in that drab, mundane, deliberately devoid of much interaction environment.”
He said one experience he had in state facilities was spending part of his time behind bars without air conditioning.
“I literally woke up in an actual pool of my sweat every night for a week my first month at the new facility,” he said.
The same goes for former Virginia state prison inmate Jesse Crosson.
“We'd stay in the showers as often as we can,” he said.
Crosson spent time in jails and prisons across the Commonwealth, some of those facilities, he said, didn’t have A/C.
“If I was going to the chow hall, I knew I would have to take my shirt and I would have to soak it in water, and I'd have to walk down the boulevard. Two minutes after sitting down in the chow hall, I'd be bone dry,” he said. “It felt like my entire life was built around scheduling and doing things that I could to try and mitigate the heat.”
Both men are involved with groups that emphasize inmate rights and help those after they're released.
“Ultimately, it comes down to safety,” Crosson said.
News 3 also reached out to the ACLU of Virginia, who’s been keeping tabs on air conditioning in Virginia jails and prisons.
“When the court sentences these people to be incarcerated… they weren’t sentenced to torture or stifling heat,” ACLU of Virginia Policy Strategist Shawn Weneta told News 3. “It is exacerbating chronic conditions, making people, certainly, very uncomfortable.”
Investigations
Related: How do Virginia jails and prisons handle transgender inmates?
Weneta told News 3 the ACLU of Virginia typically receives between 3,000-4,000 intakes a year through their intake process.
He said one of the ACLU of Virginia’s biggest concerns is for people with chronic health conditions who need regular treatment.
“Often, particularly during the summertime, a lot of those complaints that we do get are from people who have health conditions exacerbated by the heat,” he said.
News 3 reached out to jails in Hampton Roads and the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) about air conditioning for inmates. VADOC officials said, with high summer temperatures, safety for staff and more than 24,000 inmates is vital.
According to VADOC, 77-percent of inmates and community corrections alternative probationers are housed in buildings with A/C.
But what about the remaining 23 percent without A/C?
“It’s really a priority, and we’re committed to it,” VADOC spokesperson Kyle Gibson told News 3.
State corrections officials said those in buildings without A/C have certain heat mitigation resources.
“That includes the installation of fans, providing extra ice and water pouches, and adjustments to scheduling the location of some activities to accommodate for those high temperatures,” Gibson said.
Staff are also doing temperature checks multiple times a day.
“In some facilities, misting fans are also used, as well as smoke exhaust fans that increase air flow,” Gibson added.
State prison officials said all state facilities built since 1990 have had air conditioning integrated into their design.
Meanwhile, officials are exploring using temporary portable A/C units and working to install long-term solutions in older facilities not designed for A/C.
Recently, locations like Haynesville Correctional Unit 17 received air conditioning.
As for VADOC’s eastern region, which includes Hampton Roads, they said Caroline Correctional Unit #2 is the only facility in the region currently housing inmates that don’t include A/C.
When looking at jails in Hampton Roads, News 3 found out the Southampton County Jail is one facility that does not have A/C.
Southampton County Sheriff’s Office officials said they weren’t available to talk with News 3 on camera. However, they said to combat the heat, each cell block has three floor fans. Also, SCSO officials said bags of ice are distributed to each cell block five to six times a day.
Back at the state level, corrections officials said they're closely looking for available capital improvement funds for the 2023-2024 State Fiscal Year, and hope to address more renovations in other facilities over the next year.
Both Crosson and Mahon-Haft believe air conditioning in more facilities will help with safety behind bars and beyond.
“Imagine if it was somebody who you knew who's living in a space, even if it wasn't prison, a small space in an institutional building in a summer in Virginia these days. How would you want them to be treated?” Mahon-Haft said.
News 3 asked VADOC officials if there were any heat-related illnesses in the past year for inmates and staff at facilities without A/C. A spokesperson for VADOC said that’s not information they routinely capture. They added that they don’t have an electronic health record, and therefore, no means to capture the data.
VADOC officials also told News 3 they plan to use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help implement heat-related renovations, including installing air conditioning units, in facilities.
