Federal judge orders Texas to air condition all prisons by the end of 2029 | Hacker News Reader

Federal judge orders Texas to air condition all prisons by the end of 2029

texastribune.org

120 pointsbonefishgrill202 comments

Just out of college I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I took a job at a prison near Phoenix AZ. It was outdoors, the cells had no AC. In a 10 hour shift in 115 (46c) degree weather I would go through 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of water. Every single day at least one inmate would pass out from the heat. At least they got heat for the winter.

Thankfully I left all that behind a long time ago. Though I just checked and they still don’t have AC.

There is a fairly famous quote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Was it a privately owned prison? How much freedom do private prisons have to turn opaque for inspectors?

No I worked at a state run prison. All I know about the private ones is 1. The staff get paid less, and 2. They mostly only get “good” inmates. That was over a decade ago so idk if the 2nd part is still true.

Arizona was thinly populated before A/C.

This feels like a non sequitur?

I think the point they’re making is that it’s unliveable in Arizona without AC.

That's right. A/C changed everything.

This feels like an unnecessary observation, even it were true.

Honestly, Arizona is unlivable unless you are an AC repairman.

Not really. The precolonial southwest was fairly densely populated, with some areas exceeding their modern density. Population density grew sparser for various reasons after the mid-14th century until Spanish colonialism created some dramatic demographic changes. The southwest remained a pretty lawless place on the frontiers of empires where armed conflict was commonplace for the next few hundred years, until after the turn of the 20th century. Would you want to move into a civil war even if it had AC?

AC was coincidentally invented as all of this was clearing up, but it wouldn't become ubiquitous until decades later after the major cities had been established with large populations. And even then, I'd blame cheap accessibility of long distance transportation more than AC for the modern state.

What parts of the pre-14th-century american southwest corresponding to modern Arizona were more densely populated than they are today? I'm a bit skeptical of that claim, given how much more human density is possible under conditions of technological modernity compared to anytime prior to the 14th century.

Bits of Mesa that are now extremely low density suburban development were at one point large Hohokam pueblos. It's not an entirely fair comparison because it's essentially comparing high density midrise apartments to some of the least dense suburban sprawl in the US, but it's not wrong.

At a more regional level, the area around Cortez, CO is less densely populated than it was simply because virtually no one lives there now. Kayenta, much of the Navajo nation, the upper Gila region, etc are similar.

I don't believe that 14th century Indian population counts have any reliability. Estimates of pre-Columbian populations in the US area vary from 10 million to 100 million.

You can scarcely throw a stone in Phoenix without hitting an old pueblo. I don't see why continent-wide demographics have any relevance.

Where did Dostoyevsky write that?

He rarely wrote in English (if at all?) - so, never.

It is an attributed quote, translated, from discussions on and around his semi-autobiographical novel about time spent in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Dead_(novel)

Yeah, it's understood that it's meant as translated though for a translation to be attributed to him there has to be a line in Russian with the same meaning, right? And, as far as I know, such a line doesn't exist in Записки из Мертвого дома, which is trivial to prove with a simple text search for words starting with "цивилиз", which would have caught any form of "civilization". It's really curious why people who never read Dostoyevsky make up quotes for him with phrases that nobody with a good command of the Russian language could have written.

> it's understood that it's meant as translated

I find it best to never underestimate how pedantic strangers on programming related forums can be, so good we've got that out of the way.

I imagine you'd enjoy Martin Porter's four Principles for Quotations and his two pieces on sourcing the Edmund Burke BogoQuote:

* https://tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote.html

* https://tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote2.html

( and possibly even Porter's paleoCompSci work on stemming: https://tartarus.org/martin/PorterStemmer/ )

> It's really curious why people who never read Dostoyevsky make up quotes for him with phrases that nobody with a good command of the Russian language could have written.

It's a solid quip, almost serviceable as a Reader's Digest Condensed Book one page summary of Dostoyevsky prison book save for being too good (in English at least) for that sad US affront to literature.

People make up quotes for all manner of reasons, imperfect memory, a need to summarise, it's a joy to tumble both rocks and words to knock off some rough edges and brighten up a gem. Attribution to "elsewhere" is also common enough -- it can upsell your own work by attribution to a great name, it can deflect criticism if you've only polished a turd.

As curious questions go though, why not attribute it to a translation of Solzhenitsyn or Henri Charrière, (it's in the spirit of Oscar Wilde or Stephan Fry perhaps, but their works are already in English and a little too familiar for the bogoquote treatment (maybe)).

People make up random quotes and attribute to random famous people but, at least, they follow the famous person's character. For example, I never doubted "The coldest winter I've ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" was by Mark Twain. He lived in San Francisco and it looks in line with his other jokes. I only found out because someone complained about a cold summer in Slack and I wanted to reply with a link to the quote so I asked an AI to source it.

With any Dostoyevsky quote I see in English, I immediately ask an AI to check because none looks like anything any 19th century Russian writer could have possible written, least so Dostoyevsky. Also, I've never ran into a real Dostoyevsky quote in English even as tortured one as Beauty will save the world (which is probably the most often used one in Russian even though it's a fragment of a sentence with an opposite meaning).

A great many people that read Russian novelists simply don't read Russian.

Translators can and do create translations that aren't faithful to the original in at least one or two significant ways. It's a challenge somewhat like Flattening the Earth - there's always some compromise on angles or areas.

As a result, there are many English readers who see Dostoyevsky through a clouded lens; they imagine him to have traits more unique to some translation than to his core.

* https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo363285...

I have not read English translations but they cannot possibly be so bad that they inverted the meaning, can they? I.e. the actual quotes from the "House of the Dead" go like these: "A man is a creature that can get used to anything and I think it's the best definition", "There are people like tigers, yearning to lick some blood", "Almost every modern man has latent qualities of a torturer", "The most elevated and the most characteristic quality of our people is the sense of justice and the thirst of thereof" etc.

It's very similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment and has nothing about "degree of civilization", which is a common concept in Anglo culture but very alien to Russians, who never figured that you can just subjugate and exterminate peoples with free conscience if you proclaim them to be "uncivilized".

To recap; the quote, as given here upthread on HN, was "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons", and I described it as "an attributed quote, translated, from discussions on and around his semi-autobiographical novel about time spent in prison."

So not an actual quote of his, but one sprung from the minds of people who imagined him to have said that or meant that.

There's an article that claims to have sourced the origin of that attributed quote (or bogus-quote) to 1964, the Canadian playwright and ex-inmate John Herbert [1]&[2] which I imagine you'd enjoy reading as the article author, Ilya Vinitsky, argues that Dostoyevsky would have been _aware_ of the Western notions of "civilisation" and prisons while not being _aligned_ with them.

A strong case is made for Herbert having started that attribution to Dostoyevsky, and for inspiring the spread of the quote as Herbert and his work were latched onto by prison reformers of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[1] https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dostoyevsky-misprisioned...

[2] https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/beyond-reasonable-do...

The articles trace far more than I can (I'm not in the least bit fluent in Russian), and the specific blame likely falls to a non Russian prison inmate reading as widely as possible in prison, jumbling multiple sources, taking "literary licence" and not having access to a lot of background on Dostoyevsky.

Apparently he didn't and he wouldn't.

It's just been credited to him.

Was this "tent city"? I recall "tent city" was a Joe Arpaio creation that was ultimately closed down in 2017 after he lost reelection as sheriff. My closest experience with "tent city" was when a relative got busted for DUI and ended up spending a weekend there. Was quite the deterrent, as it should be, and his drunk driving was dramatically curtailed. Ultimately that's good for society.

The US needs to get over this whole ‘punishment’ view of prison. It either a social-safety quarantine, or a rehabilitation

While I agree, it can’t happen. The Puritanical strain runs too deep, to say nothing of Barbary Slave culture which absolutely continues to persist in the South despite slavery being outlawed.

Punishment is among the most American things that exist — and this is part of the reason I won’t mourn the passing of the US.

Director Lumpkin should be criminally responsible for these conditions and deaths he has been indifferent to.

Such an appropriate-sounding name he has.

The only truly endless resource is man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

I know. There seem to be an infinite supply of criminals doing crime.

I don't understand why Texas voters support such inhumane conditions. All these "Christians" who support this kind of cruel punishment need to have a "come to Jesus" moment, literally.

There is so much nuance with this. On the one hand, Texas has hot enough days where it is inhumane/dangerous to not have A/C. But also plenty of days that are hot, but bearable. There are plenty of citizens not in prison that live without AC and make due with fans. HVAC systems are ridiculusly expensive. $1.5 billion is about $10K a person. Too bad they can't just give each prisoner a window unit for $200 a piece.

Fans have no cooling effect once the ambient temperature exceeds human body temperature, so "making do with fans" is literally making do with nothing.

Those citizens "making do" generally have freedom of movement, free access to cool water, air-conditioned businesses or vehicles, and are not locked down in a concrete facility.

There is a absolutely no nuance to this.

> Fans have no cooling effect once the ambient temperature exceeds human body temperature

Sweat is a wet-bulb cooling process which always cools below ambient for any humidity less than 100%.

Please take 5 seconds to fact check yourself with a very quick query against your information source of choice.

Over ~95 degrees, a fan blowing on a human acts as a convection oven, increasing body temperature while dehydrating the body.

This is greatly exacerbated in extreme heat.

CDC guidance is to avoid using a fan in extreme heat conditions unless it is combined with a cooling source and careful hydration. Once again, not exactly an option in a Texas prison.

My statement above is basic science: wet-bulb and dry-bulb temperatures are only equal at 100% humidity, below 100% humidity wet-bulb is lower than dry-bulb.

The reason humans do not drop dead when they go outside in >100 degree weather is because sweat evaporates and lowers the temperature of humans skin below the temperature of the air: sweating skin is wet-bulb temperature and the reading on a thermometer is dry bulb temperature. This is dependent on hydration and evaporation, which is why you must hydrate and wear breathable clothing in order to avoid heat stroke, and it is why high ambient humidity is more dangerous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

You don't want to put a fan in your face, but gentle circulation of air helps to aid evaporation. Have you felt the difference between stagnant air and a gentle breeze on a hot day? As you sweat, the air immediately around you absorbs the water from your skin and increases in humidity. Gentle circulation helps to move this higher humidity air away from your skin and replace it with dryer air that has a greater capacity to evaporate more water and therefore remove more heat from your skin.

The prevalence of air conditioning is a very recent thing and for most of human existence on earth people survived in hot areas by taking advantage of evaporative cooling.

That, of course, doesn't mean we should treat prisoners poorly. But we don't need to misrepresent the science.

> cools below ambient

ambient and body temperature arent coupled items there

have you never used a convection oven?

Apparently he doesn't know what the humidity is like in Texas either.

Texas spans at least 5 Köppen-Geiger climate zones. Half of Texas is semi-arid and desert.

How much do you think it costs, in total, per prisoner today, per year?

Yeah. A one-shot investment of 10k$ per prisoner to avoid more manslaughter cases is peanuts, really.

> $1.5 billion is about $10K a person. Too bad they can't just give each prisoner a window unit for $200 a piece.

The former almost certainly includes other installation part, utility, and labor costs. Even if you could give everyone a $200 window unit, you'd need to deliver, install, upgrade utilities, maintain them, etc.

People outside of prison have freedom of movement to avoid overheating and access to a variety of enviroments and cold drinks and personal fans.

Some times people walk into supermarkets just to cool down.

These are Nationalist Christians (Nat-C’s), not actual followers of Jesus.

"They are hurting the right people". This is 100% their mentality.

But largely supported by people that would call themselves actual Christians FYI, and not even right wing extremist either.

You know what Jesus said about hypocrites. How they self-identify is unimportant if they harm their neighbor at every opportunity they get.

Just because these people don't worship or believe the same things as your sect of christianity does not stop them from believing in the teachings of Christ. They just don't agree with you while holding positions of power.

Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.

Just because people don't follow the teachings of Christ doesn't mean they don't believe in the teachings of Christ? Hey, what did Jesus have to say about hypocrites?

> Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.

Which goes to show you the state of Christianity today. Pretty sad.

Ah, another sect that selectively chooses which lessons of Christ to follow or ignore to fit their own agenda.

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle

Yup! I was raised evangelical and the pastors would brush away this passage as not being translated accurately where they would twist it to justify why you needed to give more money to the church because in the next life you'd be rewarded with riches.

It's a sick belief system.

You don't get to decide who is and isn't a "true" Christian when all it takes is to believe in Jesus' death and resurrection, which even the Prosperity Gospel Christians and Christian Nationalists do.

God does. Judging by their actions and the hate they show towards their neighbors, I get to draw the conclusion they’re not following Jesus Christ’s teachings or the Bible.

They choose to be evil.

It's because Texas is the OG of human suffering. Texas gave up territory than end slavery: This is why Oklahoma looks so weird (the "panhandle"). After the so-called Missouri compromise, in order to remain a slave-state, Texas gave up that piece of land. Also, Texas declared independence not once, but twice, to remain a slave state. First, from Mexico: "Many Anglo-American settlers were from the southern United States and brought enslaved workers, using legal loopholes like indentured servitude to bypass Mexican restrictions against slavery. They feared Mexico would abolish the practice entirely". And then, famously, of course, fighting to remain independent during the Civil War.

Your point is valid, but it is worth noting that the panhandle territory was a notoriously inhospitable place to try and exist (for European settlers at least, who called it "no mans land"), so it wasn't like Texas was giving up a gem, none of the surrounding states wanted it.

Isn’t that part of the llano estacado? The Comanche lived there just fine.

That's why I added the context about European settlers, it was the States that were drawing the lines and they labeled it "no man's land", look into the history of Beaver County.

Texas ceded said land to another state, what they viewed as another nation, such that they could keep the practice of human ownership alive and well. The quality of the land is immaterial to this statement, let alone noteworthy

I disagree, I think it adds context that the political climate of the time was more complicated and involved than the original point. It was a place where you couldn't farm and were under constant attack, during that time.

But none of what you are saying shows a complication, is historically interesting, or a proxy for the political climate. Had Texas kept the land, they could not have enforced the ability for the white ruling class to purchase other human beings. Since they were so hell bent on the white ruling class having the right to purchase other human beings, they ceded land to a hostile nation state. The headline is the forfeiture of land to a hostile nation state, not how many farms are on said land

I have lived in Texas all my life and I am used to dealing with people like you. Enjoy November.

The year is 2030. You are reading a breathless article on HN about how horrible Texas is for air conditioning their prisons but not their school.

Way down at the bottom is a dead comment: "Texan here, schools are managed locally, prisons are managed at the state level"

May we teach our children the only thing that truly matters is how we regard the dignity of people.

I find most successful Americans I meet are so self-obsessed they are left with an incredibly low capacity for empathy for those in lower classes than them. Wild how they think they are so different than Nazis.

I'm more curious personally about the legal side here. Setting aside the actual object level issue (I personally support A/C for prisons), it seems to open up a lot of interesting questions to me:

* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before the invention of A/C (obviously not)

* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before A/C became widespread and affordable for regular people? (probably not)

* what is the main reason why this wasn't an issue 50 years ago and is now? Climate change? People being on average more sensitive to heat than they used to be? Better legal recognition of prisoner suffering? Broadening of 8th amendment protections in the court system? Changing public morals, i.e. "evolving standards of decency"? Ubiquity of A/C in ordinary Texans' day to day life? The random chance of this particular case getting sent to this particular judge?

* Is it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C now, when not all non-imprisoned Texans have A/C (and if so, does that imply that A/C is being codified here as basic human right, and is that really constitutionally tenable? How is it possible for a judge to order that something is a constitutional right for prisoners, but an optional private luxury for non prisoners?)

* Is A/C the only option, or might other, cheaper cooling methods be allowed, if the core of the complaint is reducing preventable heat-related injuries and deaths? Hypothetically (not a real proposal obviously), if instead the prison put hotel-style ice machines in every cell, would this solve the issue or is the judge's decision very specifically about A/C?

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