"The walls sweat," said James Morgan as he pleaded for elected officials to take action on dire heat in Wisconsin prisons.

On Nov. 20, a press conference was held at the City-County Building, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., to highlight continued issues in temperature regulations in Wisconsin prisons. Community members addressed underlying issues with heat that cause impacts on health. They spoke from first-hand experience on the extremeness of the issue after they spent years incarcerated -- both around the country and in Wisconsin prisons.

"In facilities without air conditioning, summer temperatures frequently soar to dangerous levels, with some individual cells reaching temperatures higher than 97 degrees Fahrenheit," said Sha-Ron Buie, associate director of JustDane. "Even in prisons with cooling systems, temperatures are kept between 80 and 84 degrees, and this is a range far above what is considered safe for vulnerable populations."

Wisconsin lacks temperature regulations in its prisons. Attempts have been made to address rampant heat like Assembly Bill 757. The bill would have required prisons to install adequate heating, ventilation, air and cooling systems to require temperatures 68-78 degrees at all times in waves by May 1, 2033.

Additionally, the bill would have required all prisons in Wisconsin to document conditions in all instances where temperatures outdoors were below 10 degrees or above 90. The bill did not make it to the Senate floor timely enough and expired on April 15, 2024.

Even without a bill on the floor to address temperatures in prison, the press conference took to speaking the ignored truth -- people are dying and will continue to until problems are remedied.

"Forcing people to live in extreme heat is a form of torture," said Mark Rice, coordinator of the Wisconsin Transformational Justice Campaign at WISDOM. "It's a public health crisis that we're facing within the Wisconsin prison system, and it's time to really start to invest in health instead of torture."

Morgan and Rice shared what inmates attempt to do to avoid extreme heat from their first-hand experience incarcerated. Rice and Morgan both have had lengthy stints in prisons around the country.

They noted that inmates will attempt to cover vents to stop heat from pouring in. The by-product of it can lead to some cells beating some of the heat, but cause others to reach dangerous temperatures in the upper 90s to 100s.

"It gets very hot in there, the ventilation has been very poor. It's a building inside of a building, so the air circulation is very poor," Rice said. "And so you feel, if it's 90 degrees outside, it can feel 20-30 degrees hotter within the facility."

While inmates try their own measures to beat the heat, there are no firm mitigation measures in Wisconsin prisons. Morgan recalled an instance where one prison had uniforms cut into shorts.

"I spent time at Waupun Correctional Facility in Racine. The temperatures were so hot the wells sweat," Morgan said. "Their solution was to take our uniforms, cut the long legs off and require us to wear shorts in a cell 23 hours a day where the walls sweat."

Health complications from extreme heat are numerous. It can increase respiratory, cardiovascular, mental health and existing chronic health issues a person already has, according to a study on heat and health from the World Health Organization.

Buie cited increased mortality rates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study examined the heat metrics of 1,614 prisons in the United States between 1990-2023. It found that the highest temperature anomalies occurred in the Pacific Northwest, Northeast, Texas and Midwest. The upper Midwest ranks as one of the areas with the highest instances of increased risk of heat-related mortality.

"For every 10-degree increase above average, deaths in prison rise by over 5%, with heart-related heart disease fatality showing a staggering 6.7% increase," Buie said. "Additionally, a mere two-day heat wave can spike mortality rates by up to 21% in vulnerable populations."

Without ample solutions in Wisconsin, the three called on elected officials to take action.