The state of Texas is, as one would expect of Satan's favored playground, hot. Texas is also "tough on crime," meaning it enjoys locking people in jails but cares little what happens to them afterwards. So while Americans love air conditioning for themselves, Texans don't see the point of giving it to prisoners. What next—water?

The NYT reports that two lawsuits have been filed by prisoners in Texas, where only a fifth of the state's prisons are air conditioned.

An appeal is pending in a lawsuit initially filed in 2008 by a former inmate claiming that 54 prisoners were exposed to Death Valley-like conditions at a South Texas prison where the heat index exceeded 126 degrees for 10 days indoors... A Texas law requires county jails to maintain temperature levels between 65 and 85 degrees, but the law does not apply to state prisons.

Four (4) (FOUR) Texas inmates died from the heat last summer. Four. Dead. That is a problem.

Texas should only have air conditioning in prison, and nowhere else.

[NYT. Photo: AP]