Dangerously High Heat Inside South Florida Prison Hit 119°F, Expert Report Finds

Key finding: An expert report filed in a class-action lawsuit says indoor heat at Dade Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County reached a "real feel" heat index of 119°F and stayed at dangerously high levels throughout the summer.

What the report measured

The Florida Justice Institute (FJI) retained Stefano Schiavon, a UC Berkeley professor who studies commercial HVAC systems, to collect quantitative temperature data inside Dade Correctional Institution. Schiavon placed sensors throughout the facility that recorded readings every five minutes from May through October.

Major findings

• Across all monitored locations, the heat index exceeded the 88°F danger threshold 97% of the time; some locations exceeded that threshold 100% of the time and even the coolest location exceeded it 87% of the time.
• In one cell block, the heat index remained above 108°F for 34 consecutive hours in July.
• The highest recorded heat index was 119°F in a dayroom, recorded at 10 p.m.
• Schiavon found indoor areas were often hotter than outside and did not cool at night, describing the building as "like a battery that gets charged up by the sun" and slowly discharging heat after dark.

"All of the data demonstrate the heat index levels are dangerously high," Schiavon concluded in his report.

Legal and human context

FJI alleges that keeping people in cells where the heat index remains well above 88°F violates inmates' Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The organization's complaint links extreme indoor heat at Dade C.I. to four deaths, including an 81-year-old, wheelchair-bound man identified only as "J.B.," who had a breathing impairment; on the day he was found dead, the outdoor heat index reached 104°F and exhaust fans in his dormitory were broken.

Dante Trevisani, FJI's litigation director, said the report confirms summer heat indexes inside Dade C.I. are extraordinarily high and expressed hope the findings will help protect incarcerated people's health and lives.

Department response and facility conditions

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) declined to comment on pending litigation but said it provides air-conditioned units for "the most vulnerable inmate populations, including the infirmed, mentally ill, pregnant, and geriatric." The FDC noted many facilities were built before air conditioning became commonplace, and that all have been audited by the American Correctional Association and deemed compliant.

The FDC also said non-air-conditioned areas use "various climate control measures to reduce heat, including industrial fans, exhaust systems that promote high air exchange, and ceiling or wall-mounted circulation fans."

But Schiavon's onsite observations found those measures uneven and often ineffective: ceiling fans were too small to make a meaningful difference, caged fans in some dorms "do not blow any air" into individual cells, and exhaust systems operated at inconsistent capacities. "In some dorms, I could feel them drawing out some air," he wrote. "In other dorms, I could barely feel the exhaust system working at all."

Broader trend

Advocates and experts say the lack of air conditioning in older prisons has become a growing humanitarian and legal problem as summers grow hotter and longer across the South. Related litigation has appeared in other states: families of three Texas inmates who died in 2023 filed a federal lawsuit claiming extreme heat contributed to the deaths, and inmates in Missouri filed a similar suit in May. A 2023 Texas Tribune analysis found at least 41 people died in uncooled Texas prisons during that year's record heat wave.

The FJI says Schiavon's sensor data provide quantitative evidence that indoor heat at Dade C.I. presents a sustained, dangerous risk to people incarcerated there; the litigation will test whether those conditions violate constitutional protections.