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

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.