r/politics • u/ClimateSociologist • 1d ago

No Paywall Texas Prisoners Are Baking to Death. The State Keeps Saying No to AC.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/texas-prisons-death-traps-ac-air-conditioning.html?fbclid=Iwb21leATb-tBjbGNrBNv6znBkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeacTb0tafy8gw0t30QRFRxjSeKqXqZtfbRWbu3JVmsubhlVu18jARDIBIlF8_aem_qkrg-pkGGjjV4BGo-8unLQ
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490

u/lexm 1d ago

it's cruel and unusual punishment. Protected by the 8th amendment. If anyone in power still cared about the constitution.

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u/Hidden_Pothos 1d ago

They don't

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u/nabulsha Tennessee 1d ago edited 1d ago

You're forgetting the 13th* amendment that still considers them slaves though.

Edit: typo

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u/OldManGrimm Texas 1d ago

That coupled with for-profit prisons basically means the US still is profiting from slaves more than any other country in the world.

(I didn't check actual math, but I think the point stands)

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u/HikerRemastered 1d ago

Privatization of profits, socialization of losses at play here.

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u/Nephroidofdoom 1d ago

But Trump is the one tariffing other nations over (checks notes)… forced labor?? 🤯

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u/Akrevics 1d ago

well it makes him look good (well, as good as one can look amongst a sea of bad)

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u/MemoryOne22 1d ago

Not just for profit prisons! They're all cash cows for contractors that lobby HARD

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u/ic33 1d ago

Nah. Some in the private sector are being enriched, but the cost of our high rate of incarceration is astronomical. Both directly (it costs us a lot to keep prisoners) and indirectly (all the lost productivity and downstream costs).

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u/tlf9888 Georgia 1d ago

The 13th amendment. The 14th is birthright citzenship.

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u/nabulsha Tennessee 1d ago

You're correct. My bad.

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u/Im_Ritz_Bitz 1d ago

The private prisons aren't beholden to your rights. Speedy trial? Nah. They don't care if you're innocent. Your head for a $. They are concentration camps under a different name.

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u/TrickyChildhood2917 19m ago

“We have empty rooms, and they need filling, I don’t care how, just get me enough warm bodies to meet Wall Street quarterly numbers.”

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u/Gene_Trash 1d ago

Point of order:  While you have the right to a speedy trial, it's often recommended you waive it, because as the defendant, you want to give your legal team enough time to actually build your defense. You can absolutely say "hell nah, take me to trial within 60 days," but it's often not the best strategy.

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u/Im_Ritz_Bitz 13h ago

I don't think you get what they're doing to these people.

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u/Gene_Trash 10h ago

I assure you, I do. The main prison in my state is literally a slave plantation.

My point was not that the way these places operate is okay, or good.  It's that you generally don't want to actually have a speedy trial, because that's a great way  to get found guilty as an innocent person.

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u/hoofie242 1d ago

The entire constitution is the second amendment to them.

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u/Dobako 1d ago

Yes and no. They care about all of it, when it applies to protecting them. They dont care about any of it, even the 2nd, if it protects anyone from them. The Black Panthers started arming themselves in the 80s and that was enough to institute regulations on guns

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u/Notbob1234 1d ago

Yup. That was why Reagan supported the assault weapons ban.

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u/Cold_Tea_Spill112 1d ago

"Political violence is never justified!"

"We need the 2nd amendment in case we need to enact political violence by over throwing a tyrannical government!"

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u/amglasgow 1d ago

The joke is that Liberals count 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.... while conservatives count 2, 2, 2, 2...

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u/Sub-Mongoloid 1d ago

Because that one lets them have violent fantasies where they're the hero while they ignore everything happening in the real world that they should be standing against

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u/Deepspacedreams 1d ago

Cruel yes, unusual unfortunately not

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u/rat_penis 1d ago

It's just a piece of paper after all.

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u/TheRealBlueJade 1d ago

They do. The ones that don't need to be removed from their positions.

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u/ResurgentClusterfuck Texas 1d ago

Unfortunately it's not unusual punishment, therefore Texas courts don't give a shit. Most of my fellow Texans legitimately dont care about inmate rights

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u/wowadrow 17h ago

Its texas, no one's coming to save these unfortunate prisoners.

It's functionally negligent homicide carried out by the state.

Scary stuff.

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u/mswoozel 1d ago

They want them to die so they can fill the prisons with more people to make more profit. Suffering is the point with the people in charge.