Texas prison staff falsified temperatures records, investigation finds

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Employees from at least one Texas prison falsified temperature logs that help the agency decide when the conditions inside are dangerous to inmates and staff, according to an internal investigation triggered by a federal lawsuit.

The investigation, which homed in on recordkeeping at the Mark W. Stiles Unit in Beaumont over the summer of 2022, found prison staff “recreated” logs that were missing or had been “defaced (e.g., doodles, stick figure cartoons, etc.) by staff.”

Some temperatures logged by prison employees were far off the actual temperatures, the report noted. On July 31, 2022, for example, the temperatures logged at the Stiles Unit were between 58 and 60 degrees “while the lowest actual recorded temperature for that day was 76 degrees.”

The warden and other prison leaders likely knew about or even consented to the falsification, the investigation concluded.

Two-thirds of the state’s roughly 100 jails and prisons in Texas are not fully air conditioned in inmate housing areas. Indoor temperatures over the summer can regularly top 95 to 100 degrees for days on end, the agency’s records show.

The temperature readings taken at units are important because they help prison department leaders decide when to implement emergency protocols. If the temperature tops 90 degrees, for example, inmates should get access to fans, extra water and cool showers.

"Somebody needs to look into this"

The internal investigation was requested by the federal judge presiding over a case challenging conditions inside the state’s prisons. Bernie Tiede, who is incarcerated, and a number of criminal justice advocacy groups are the plaintiffs.

During an August hearing in the lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman expressed doubt that the prison department’s temperature logs at the Stiles Unit were accurate. A log the department gave the judge showed that it got no hotter than 79 degrees at the Beaumont prison on a day in mid-July of 2022.

“This is not a mistake. This is a fabricated document,” Pitman said from the bench. “Somebody needs to look into this.”

The investigation was completed in November but not made public until this week. The plaintiffs said the Department of Criminal Justice “sat on the report for four months” and demanded they explain why.

Anticipating the report would be made public, the department’s attorneys filed a brief Tuesday that acknowledged some prison temperature logs were inaccurate but said there was no intent “to mislead or deceive.”

They also said they did not think they needed to give the judge the results of the investigation. The state’s attorneys gave the plaintiffs the report in late February.

Chris Cirrito, the chief audit executive for the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, carried out the investigation. In his report, he found the Department of Criminal Justice did not intentionally deceive the judge because the falsified records were created before this case was filed.

The logs were falsified, Cirrito wrote, after someone requested them under the state’s public records laws. That’s when prison staff realized they were missing or defaced.

“The evidence supports periods of carelessness in record creation and/or retention and an attempt by the unit to avoid reporting missing temperature logs,” he concluded.

In emails sent to Department Executive Director Bryan Collier, also included in the court filing, Cirrito said he was confident in his findings and that they “should satisfy the judge.” But he added, “I might be able to prove it out even further and think it's worth turning over the rock.”

It’s unclear if the Department of Criminal Justice has broadened or continued the investigation. A spokesperson declined The Texas Newsroom’s request for further comment.

Texas prison heat case, explained

Tiede, a former mortician, is currently serving a 99-year sentence for murdering an 81-year-old widow in East Texas. His crime was immortalized in director Richard Linklater’s dark comedy “Bernie,” starring Jack Black.

Tiede’s case against the state dates back nearly two years, when he sued after saying he suffered a stroke in a prison cell that lacked A/C.

The plaintiffs, which now include Tiede and a few criminal justice advocacy groups, want the state to install air conditioning system wide. They argue the conditions are unconstitutional and dangerous for both inmates and staff.

The heat is the fifth leading cause of serious injury among staff and may have contributed to the deaths of three inmates last summer. Incarcerated people report being forced to cool off by laying unclothed on the floor, splashing themselves with toilet water or even resorting to self harm to be moved to a prison’s air conditioned medical area.

Department officials acknowledge it is hot inside its prisons but deny that the conditions are unconstitutional. During testimony in the case last year, Department Executive Director Bryan Collier argued it would be financially and logistically impossible to immediately install A/C in every one of the state’s prisons and noted that he is working diligently to fix the problem within their fiscal constraints.

This is not the first time Texas has been sued over the heat in its state prisons. A similar case covering just one unit resulted in the prison agency installing A/C there and making other quality of life adjustments for incarcerated people at the highest risk for heat stroke.

The prison department says more than 10,000 “cool beds” for state inmates have been added since that case.

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