Heat Desperation in a Texas Prison

Kwaneta Harris is an incarcerated writer held in solitary confinement in Texas. The following are the beginning paragraphs of her recent story. Go read the whole thing – you won’t forget it. Then think about how climate change, cruelty, and neglect will combine to kill many people in prison in the coming years, and how politicians refusing to enact Green New Deal policies run for office on fear mongering campaigns touting punitive answers to crime. While climate change and mass incarceration may appear to be separate issues, the personal and political transformations required to address them have a lot in common. Will we build a world of extraction and punishment, or one of regenerative energy, interdependence, and community support? 

His sweat drips into my drinking cup. I’m in solitary confinement, and I’ve waited nine hours for ice-cold water. Severe staff shortages mean the sergeant is distributing lunch. My thirsty eyes watch him fill my three cups with the cold water pitcher, mixing with his DNA. The ice machine is broken more than it works. I don’t blame it; I’d quit too if I were the only thing making ice for more than 1,200 people. When this happens, the kitchen staff is ordered to fill white buckets and empty vegetable tin cans with water to place in the walk-in freezer. I try to funnel metallic, bitter, and salty water past my tongue and down my throat. At least it’s cold. I drain two of my cups, and the sergeant goes against the rules by refilling them directly. As I grab my tray and turn, he smirks and says, “Not bad for your age, not bad at all.”

My stomach tightens and threatens to reverse the water. This is my seventh Texas summer in The Hole out of 16 years incarcerated. This is my first year wearing only state-issued white panties and bras, The Prison Bikini. I’ve always worn a T-shirt and shorts or just a very long T-shirt with undergarments. Last June, I fainted when my cell temperature reading reached 129°. This year, I let the dignity vampires win, and I, as the lone holdout, began the demeaning obligation of wearing undergarments while surrounded by a majority male staff. I can’t stomach their comments. Some take this survival tactic as an invitation. This is the price I pay for bad-tasting cold water. It’s my only option as Texas suffers through a brutal heat wave, and our water access inside prison is increasingly restricted…..