// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Federal judge orders Texas to air condition all prisons by the end of 2029
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A federal judge has ordered Texas to air condition all of the state’s lockups, which the prison agency said could cost $1.5 billion, by the end of 2029.
The ruling, released Tuesday, is a win for inmate advocates and their attorneys, who had asked the court to force the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to cool the entire prison system by that time. Just over a third of the agency’s 104 facilities were fully air conditioned as of Sept. 1.
In his order, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found that conditions in Texas prisons without air conditioning violate the Eighth Amendment — which protects against cruel and unusual punishment — and that TDCJ’s current response to extreme heat is insufficient.
Pitman ordered the agency to immediately create and implement a plan to add air conditioning in every Texas prison. The installation, he said, must be completed no later than Dec. 31, 2029.
“In the face of clear evidence of risk — including ongoing injuries, deaths, and suffering every summer — Director [Bobby] Lumpkin’s failure to enact a meaningful, committed plan to install air-conditioning on the timeline that TDCJ has repeatedly indicated is possible is deliberate indifference,” the judge wrote in his 150-page order.
The decision followed a federal trial that took place earlier this year in Austin. It also came after Pitman, appointed by former President Barack Obama, declared in a 2025 ruling that excessive heat in Texas prisons is likely “unconstitutional punishment.” But the judge declined at the time to require TDCJ to install temporary air conditioning, reasoning that the option was not a permanent solution and was unlikely to be accomplished before a preliminary ruling would expire.
TDCJ said it will appeal Pitman’s ruling, adding that it disagrees with the judge’s finding that it has acted with deliberate indifference.
“TDCJ has robust heat mitigation efforts in place to protect the safety of its population and staff,” the department said in a statement. “The agency continues improving heat mitigation measures to ensure they are effective, consistent and ingrained in operations.”
The agency also said it expects to increase the number of cool beds to 60,000 by the end of this year, nearly doubling the figure from 2018. It anticipates growing this number to 90,000 in 2028.