As temperatures exceeded 90 degrees in San Francisco this week, those in jail — both inmates and sheriff’s deputies alike — struggled with the sweltering heat, trapped in a largely windowless building with little cooling.
Both temperatures and tempers rose.
The city’s downtown jail at 425 Seventh St., where 366 people are being held, as of today, has no air conditioning, only a “cooling system” that is reportedly often broken.
The jail’s doors must remain closed at all times for security reasons, a sheriff’s deputy said, and body heat gets trapped inside the windowless building, bringing internal temperatures even higher than the 90 degrees outside. Only the medical unit has air conditioning.
Sheriff’s deputies have resorted to using personal fans to cool down the locker rooms and the housing “pods,” where inmates are held, but these measures have been insufficient.
“A couple of personal fans is not adequate to try to cool down the whole pod” that may house more than 50 people, the deputy said. “You definitely break a sweat.”
On Wednesday, two fights broke out at County Jail 2, according to the deputy, who requested to remain anonymous. “When it’s really hot, it happens more often,” he added. “Temperatures start to rise and people start to get a little upset, and so the smallest thing can break out into a fight.”
“It gets bad in there. It gets bad,” said Calvin, 38, who said he spent years in and out of the jail. “Some of those people ain’t had a cold drink in five years, coldest thing you’re getting is tap water.”
He said that inmates depend on the occasional kindness of a deputy or guard who might pass out ice, but that he was used to the “bare minimum” at the downtown San Francisco jail.
The president of the sheriff’s deputies union, Ken Lomba, said the heat is a contributing factor to increased fights — a danger to inmates and deputies alike. That danger, he added, could be exacerbated by understaffed and overcrowded jails.
“With the excessive heat, the incarcerated people are going to get irritable and agitated,” said Lomba, “and it makes it more of a safety risk because there’s an increased risk of fights, combative inmates, arguments and so forth.”
The sheriff’s department spokesperson, Tara Moriarty, said she had no reports of any recent fights at the jail.
Moriarty said that the jail “was built 30 years ago without air conditioning, like most buildings in San Francisco,” but that the building has an “air handler system” that circulates in fresh air from outdoors. For “unusually hot” days, like the ones seen this week, Moriarty said that there are “a multitude of fans” available, and that employees lower the lights and distribute ice.
A statement issued by the union today pointed to Mayor London Breed’s “persistent pattern” of cuts to the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department’s budget and the impacts on jailed people’s rights.
While the San Francisco Police Department has seen its proposed budget increase 8 percent to nearly $775 million, the Sheriff’s Office budget is facing a 3 percent cut, down to $291 million.
“The way she is silently defunding the sheriff and fully funding the police department, I mean, that’s not good — that’s not good for people that are trying to rehabilitate in jail, it’s not good for their health and safety in the jail,” Lomba said.
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But Calvin, for his part, said he is skeptical of giving more money to the sheriff’s department.
“Even if you try to find a way to cool down, they don’t let you,” he said. “Even if they get more money, they’re not gonna use it on the inmates.”
In cases of extreme heat or cold, he said deputies often refused to work with inmates, and would write them up if they had an extra blanket, and forbade inmates from removing their shirts.
San Francisco jails are not unique in their lack of preparedness for climate change and rising temperatures. A report released earlier this year with the University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs found that more than half of California’s state prisons are susceptible to impending climate change “hazards” — including extreme heat and cold, wildfires and flooding.
“The pandemic put a spotlight on how abysmally jails, prisons and immigration detention centers are able to respond to public health crises,” said Valerie Ibarra, a spokesperson for the Public Defender’s Office, in a statement.
The city’s jail population is now higher than pre-pandemic levels, she continued, and with jail crowding comes more “traumatizing and dangerous” situations for those incarcerated.
“When there’s heat warnings coming out, we should have the ability to have air conditioning units turned on, built in — not some Band-Aid,” Lomba said.
Ty for the great work
Kindness to people at the lowest point in their lives is real what we should be striving for.
The deputies have a difficult job ice cubes and a little AC is not to much to ask for.
Now that we know it can get really cold or really hot, I hope this helps for those who commit crimes know what they can face during their free vacation.
Remember when that jail opened and the Chronaminer dubbed it the “Glamor Slammer?”
Compared to Rikers Island, which is nearly 100 years old, SF Central Booking is luxury.
“Somewhere else is worse so shutuppa-you-face.”
the government can take a major pay cut, to raise money not just for inmates (you all should be ashamed inmates are humans it should not be so dang hard) but the CO’s working inside WTH about your fellow coworkers. Support them since yall cant do it for human rights! SMH!
When I toured that facility several years ago I asked if I could see a white prisoner just so I could say I saw one. The ethnicity of those suffering in that terrible place has to do with the fact that our jails are disproportionately filled with people of color.
When one sees such a situation it is impossible to unsee it for the rest of one’s life. I will never forget seeing the top floor jails of 850 Bryant St or the jail that was built next to that building. It is evil and racist.