Earlier this year, state workplace safety regulators at the California Division of Occupational Health and Safety cut out state prisons and other correctional facilities from protections for indoor workers during excessive heat events. That includes the tens of thousands of officers, and other positions, and the nearly 39,000 inmates who have jobs in state prisons.
Inmate Adrienne Boulware, incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility, died Saturday amid the heat wave, raising concerns over extreme heat conditions in correctional facilities. Boulware’s family said that they were informed by prison staff that she had died from a heat stroke.
In a statement, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said that the cause of death appears to be related to pre-existing health conditions, not the heat. The coroner’s office is still determining an official cause of death.
On June 20, the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health approved a set of indoor heat regulations meant to keep workers across the state cool amid the record high temperatures. But the board notably exempted prison and jails from the workplace regulations, citing high financial burdens related to the installation of cooling systems. Correctional officers and staff are still required to police prison yards in temperatures in excess of 118 degrees. Some prisons in the Southern California region allow for modification of yard programing during extreme temperatures, but other prisons still require officers to work in the extreme environment.