Estimated Time to Read: 17 minutes
A federal judge has ordered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to install air conditioning throughout the state’s prison system by the end of 2029, concluding that extreme heat in unair-conditioned facilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman issued the 150-page final order on Tuesday, following an eight-day bench trial earlier this year. The decision addresses a longstanding debate over conditions inside Texas prisons, but its implications extend beyond air conditioning to state spending, the purposes of incarceration, legislative authority, and the appropriate scope of federal judicial remedies.
The ruling arrives as TDCJ is already seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for air conditioning and other prison infrastructure ahead of the 90th Texas Legislature. It also follows multiple legislative attempts to establish temperature requirements for state prisons that lawmakers ultimately did not enact.
Court Finds Prison Heat Violates the Eighth Amendment
Pitman’s central finding is that extreme heat in TDCJ facilities without air conditioning presents an unconstitutional risk to inmates.
At the time of trial, approximately 88,697 inmates were headed into summer 2026 in housing without air conditioning, representing roughly 63 percent of the prison population.
The court reviewed evidence of temperatures reaching dangerous levels, heat-related illnesses, and disputed inmate deaths. Pitman ultimately found credible medical evidence showing that extreme summer temperatures present serious health risks even to young and otherwise healthy inmates, with additional risks for inmates with certain medical conditions or medications.
The court also found TDCJ’s existing heat mitigation measures insufficient. Those measures include fans, cold water, cooling towels, showers, cooled respite areas, and a heat-score system intended to identify particularly vulnerable inmates.
This conclusion had been developing throughout the litigation. In March 2025, Pitman found that the plaintiffs were likely to establish an Eighth Amendment violation but declined to impose temporary systemwide air conditioning while the case proceeded.
Following the 2026 trial, the court concluded that TDCJ had not responded adequately to the continuing risk. Pitman found that the agency continued relying on mitigation measures that had failed to prevent heat-related injuries, deaths, and thousands of grievances while failing to commit to a concrete timetable for systemwide air conditioning.
Texas Prisons Face a 2029 Air Conditioning Deadline
The most consequential part of the ruling may be the remedy.
The federal Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) restricts federal courts from imposing prison remedies that extend further than necessary to correct a constitutional violation. Relief must be narrowly drawn and represent the least intrusive means necessary, with substantial weight given to potential effects on public safety and operation of the criminal justice system.
Pitman concluded that systemwide air conditioning meets that standard. Because the court found the constitutional violation to be systemwide and existing mitigation measures insufficient, it determined that systemwide relief was necessary. The court set December 31, 2029, as the deadline.
That timeline relies partly on testimony from TDCJ Director of Engineering Dale Cox, who estimated that systemwide installation could be completed within 36 to 51 months if sufficient funding were available. The court characterized that timetable, using Cox’s own testimony, as “very doable” and “not unreasonable.”
That estimate assumes funding is already in place. The deadline falls 39 months after the ruling, near the low end of Cox's range, and the state's next budget does not take effect until September 1, 2027. From that date, TDCJ would have roughly 28 months to finish, less than the 36-month minimum in its own engineer's estimate, unless lawmakers provide money earlier through a supplemental appropriation or the agency redirects existing funds.
Pitman did not, however, prescribe precisely how TDCJ must accomplish the work. The court declined, at least for now, to appoint a special master, dictate procurement and construction methods, or create a detailed remedial plan governing TDCJ’s day-to-day operations.
That distinction could become significant if the ruling is appealed.
[As of publication, the Office of the Attorney General had not announced whether the state will appeal.]
Texas prison air conditioning: where things stand
TDCJ is adding air-conditioned beds, but funded projects stop well short of the whole system. A federal court now requires systemwide air conditioning by the end of 2029.
Air-conditioned today
53,676
Beds in TDCJ facilities with air conditioning as of Sept. 1, 2026.
Funded and in the pipeline
40,442
- Under construction 23,738
- In procurement 7,348
- In design 9,356
After funded projects
~90,000
Air-conditioned beds TDCJ projects once currently funded work is complete.
Prison population
~140,000
About 88,697 inmates (63%) entered summer 2026 in housing without air conditioning.
Federal court deadline
Dec. 31, 2029
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ordered systemwide air conditioning under the Eighth Amendment.
What the 90th Legislature inherits
$1.53B
Total HVAC cost in TDCJ's own plan to air-condition inmate housing systemwide, spread across FY 2028–2031.
$298.0M
Requested for 2028–29 to add 15,742 air-conditioned beds. All of it is scheduled for FY 2028.
$1.23B
Remaining HVAC costs TDCJ projects for FY 2030–31, a budget that begins four months before the court's deadline.
36–51mo
TDCJ's engineering estimate for systemwide installation with full funding. The deadline is 39 months from the ruling.
What Compliance Could Cost Texas
Compliance could require substantial state spending.
TDCJ has estimated that systemwide permanent air conditioning could cost approximately $1.5 billion, although the ultimate cost of complying with the ruling remains uncertain.
The agency is already requesting significant infrastructure funding for the 2028-29 biennium. Its Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR) seeks $298 million to install HVAC in inmate housing, adding 15,742 air-conditioned beds on top of projects already funded and underway. TDCJ is separately requesting $591.8 million to construct 17 expansion dormitories at 13 locations, adding approximately 5,600 beds, along with $20 million to begin designing a new prison.
The court questioned whether TDCJ’s current funding request demonstrated a commitment to its previous systemwide plans. TDCJ has presented four-phase, three-phase, and two-phase approaches to completing air conditioning, while its engineering director testified that the work could be completed within 36 to 51 months if adequately funded. Pitman found that TDCJ’s latest appropriations request sought less than half of the funding the agency had previously identified for the next stage of its latest plan.
The budget request itself shows how far the agency's funding plan trails the court's timetable. The $298 million HVAC request is scheduled entirely for fiscal year 2028. The same filing projects another $1.23 billion in HVAC costs for fiscal years 2030 and 2031 to reach the remaining facilities, bringing the total to about $1.53 billion. That later spending would come from a budget written in 2029 and taking effect September 1, 2029, four months before the court's deadline.
Those figures cover installation, not operation. TDCJ's base request for utilities is essentially unchanged from current levels, even as air-conditioned capacity grows. For comparison, the agency is requesting $114.4 million and 448 additional employees just to operate the 14 expansion dorms lawmakers funded in 2025.
The issue will therefore land directly in front of lawmakers preparing the next state budget. TDCJ is already seeking approximately $2.29 billion in exceptional items for the 2028-29 biennium across priorities including major repairs, additional capacity, correctional health care, staffing, technology, and other operational needs.
Texas Lawmakers Previously Considered Prison Temperature Limits
The Legislature has already considered establishing statewide temperature requirements for TDCJ facilities.
During the 88th Legislative Session (2023), House Bill 1355 (HB 1355), authored by former State Rep. Carl Sherman (D-DeSoto), would have required every TDCJ cellblock, dormitory, and common area to maintain temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. HB 1355 received a public hearing and was reported favorably from the House Committee on Corrections by an 8-0 vote before being sent to the House Calendars Committee. It did not ultimately pass.
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) filed a similar proposal, House Bill 1315 (HB 1315), during the 89th Legislative Session (2025). It proposed the same 65-to-85-degree standard but did not receive a committee hearing in the House Committee on Corrections.
Lawmakers have instead addressed prison heat through the budget. A rider in TDCJ's current appropriations requires the agency to log the temperature at 3 p.m. each day from April through September in every inmate housing area without air conditioning. It also requires an annual report to the Legislature on temperature-related complaints, cases of hyperthermia, deaths caused or worsened by heat, and the agency's heat-mitigation procedures.
County jails, by contrast, must maintain temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees under Texas Commission on Jail Standards rules.
The legislative history is significant without resolving the constitutional question. Texas lawmakers considered specific temperature requirements for state prisons and chose monitoring and reporting instead. A federal court has now separately concluded that existing conditions violate the U.S. Constitution.
Is Air Conditioning a Right in Texas Prisons?
The ruling also raises a more fundamental question underlying the policy debate: Do incarcerated Texans have a right to air conditioning?
That framing can obscure an important legal distinction.
The constitutional question is not simply whether an inmate possesses an abstract right to air conditioning or the same level of comfort found in most homes and businesses. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and federal courts have long considered whether extreme temperatures expose inmates to a substantial risk of serious harm.
Earlier Fifth Circuit cases have also shaped the legal boundaries surrounding extreme heat in prisons. In Ball v. LeBlanc, a case arising from Louisiana's Angola prison, the Fifth Circuit rejected broader air-conditioning relief for three inmates while recognizing that they were entitled to a remedy for unconstitutional heat exposure. In Yates v. Collier, litigation involving extreme heat at TDCJ's Wallace Pack Unit, the district court found that water, fans, showers, and respite were not necessarily sufficient simply because they had previously been recognized as possible heat-mitigation measures, and the Fifth Circuit allowed the challenge to proceed as a class action. The case settled in 2018, with TDCJ agreeing to install air conditioning in the Pack Unit's housing areas.
Pitman’s ruling rests on a different factual and procedural record. He concluded that the alternatives used by TDCJ have not adequately eliminated the constitutional injury and that air conditioning is therefore necessary. He also distinguished earlier cases involving individual plaintiffs from the systemwide violation and organizational plaintiffs before him.
The distinction between comfort and health and safety is central to the overall debate. People sentenced to prison are deprived of their liberty. They do not independently control where they live, when they can leave their housing, or how they respond to dangerous environmental conditions. Once the state assumes that level of control, the argument for temperature control rests less on providing comfort than on what conditions the government may constitutionally impose on people in its custody.
Opponents of broad prison mandates can nevertheless raise legitimate questions about where that obligation ends, particularly when compliance requires potentially more than $1 billion from taxpayers.
Punishment, Restitution, and Prison Conditions
There is also a broader policy debate over what incarceration itself is supposed to accomplish.
One argument against expanding prison amenities begins with the punitive purpose of incarceration. Prison is supposed to impose a meaningful consequence for criminal conduct. Victims and taxpayers may understandably question policies perceived as making incarceration increasingly comfortable, particularly when many Texans themselves work in extreme heat or struggle with the costs of housing, utilities, and other necessities.
There is also a deterrence argument. The prospect of losing one’s freedom and enduring restrictive prison conditions is intended, at least in part, to discourage criminal behavior. From that perspective, policymakers may be reluctant to make prison conditions more comfortable than necessary.
But temperature control does not necessarily eliminate punishment.
The principal punishment imposed through incarceration is the deprivation of liberty and the restrictions accompanying it. A prison sentence does not explicitly include exposure to heat illness, organ damage, or potentially lethal environmental conditions.
There is also a question of what conditions best facilitate accountability, restitution, rehabilitation, and eventual reentry.
A corrections system focused on accountability can require inmates to work where appropriate, make restitution to victims, participate in education and treatment, develop productive skills, follow strict institutional rules, and prepare for lawful life after release. Those objectives do not necessarily depend on extreme indoor temperatures.
Excessive heat can also affect the people responsible for operating the prisons. The court record documented nearly 80 heat-related workers’ compensation claims from TDCJ employees during 2022 and 2023, and TDCJ reported 35 instances of heat-related illnesses among staff in 2023.
The policy choice therefore does not have to be between a punitive prison system and a comfortable one.
Texas can maintain prisons that are austere, disciplined, secure, and centered on accountability while separately determining what minimum environmental conditions are necessary for inmates and correctional employees to remain safe and for prisons to function effectively.
That difference is important as lawmakers consider whether temperature control advances or undermines the purposes of incarceration.
Who Decides the Remedy?
Separate from whether Texas should air-condition its prisons is who should determine the remedy, timetable, and expenditure.
The Texas Legislature controls state appropriations. Federal courts, meanwhile, possess authority to remedy violations of federal constitutional rights.
Those responsibilities collide when a judicial remedy carries substantial fiscal consequences.
Pitman’s order does not appropriate Texas money. But if the ruling remains in effect, its December 2029 deadline will necessarily influence legislative budget decisions.
That makes the scope of the remedy an important issue in its own right. The question is not merely whether dangerous prison temperatures should be addressed, but whether systemwide air conditioning on a court-imposed timetable satisfies the PLRA’s requirement that federal intervention be narrowly drawn and represent the least intrusive means of correcting the constitutional violation.
The PLRA also limits how long such an order can last. A state may move to terminate prospective relief two years after it is granted, and the court must end it unless it finds that relief remains necessary to correct a current and ongoing violation. If the order stands, that provision could become relevant as installation proceeds and the Legislature decides how quickly to fund it.
Pitman’s order directly addresses that issue and concludes that it does. An appeal could provide further guidance on whether that reasoning withstands Fifth Circuit scrutiny.
Texas Prison Air Conditioning Moves to the 90th Legislature
The September 22 ruling changes the context of a debate Texas lawmakers have confronted before.
TDCJ was already expanding air-conditioned capacity. The Legislature had already considered statutory temperature requirements. The agency was already preparing substantial infrastructure requests for the 2028-29 state budget.
The court has now imposed a timetable on that process. TDCJ's own budget plan, meanwhile, finishes paying for systemwide air conditioning after that timetable ends.
That leaves Texas policymakers confronting several distinct questions that should not be collapsed into a single debate over whether prisoners “deserve” air conditioning.
First is the constitutional question of what minimum conditions Texas must provide people entirely within state custody. Second is the correctional policy question of what environment best serves punishment, deterrence, accountability, restitution, rehabilitation, institutional security, and eventual reentry. Third is the fiscal question of how potentially more than $1 billion in additional infrastructure fits among other state priorities. Finally, there is the institutional question of how far a federal court may go in dictating the timetable for a remedy whose implementation ultimately requires state resources.
Evidence of dangerous prison heat does not resolve every question about the appropriate judicial remedy. Likewise, legitimate concerns about taxpayer costs and federal judicial authority do not eliminate Texas’ constitutional responsibilities toward people it incarcerates.
The 90th Legislature may now have to wrestle with all of those questions at once.
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