When I was in prison, I spent a lot of time living without air conditioning. It was more like torture than living.
I served a part of my sentence at an incentive camp at Marion Correctional Institute (Marion CI) in Marion County. Incentive camps are for inmates who earn the privilege of being there through good behavior. I expected it to be a less harsh environment but, in many ways, it wasn’t. Even though while I was there, I was able to take classes like HVAC, entrepreneurship, and truck driving, the harsh conditions made it hard to learn.
In fact, the conditions were worse than the prison where I was before.
I never knew walls could sweat until I was at Marion CI. With all this heat, not only did the walls sweat but they were also moldy. Instead of cleaning the mold, they just painted over it time and time again. With the walls sweating and the floors sweating, traffic and dirt from people’s shoes made the floors muddy. In these harsh conditions, where temperatures reach higher than 100 degrees, with no air conditioning or cold water, you end up with a bunch of angry and dehydrated people running around.
The dorm was a straight, long hallway lined with rooms and just a single exhaust fan at the end of the hall. We had zero fans in our dorms. In every room, you had a window that could be cracked a little bit, but if the breeze wasn’t blowing, with two people in such a small space, it got so hot that at times I literally thought I was going to pass out. Other people did pass out. Men 60 and 70 years old were in this heat. It was very sad.
There was one time when I feared for my life. I was going through a deep depression from the death of my mom, and after a long day of being stuck in the heat I had an asthma attack. It was three in the morning, and I alerted the officer during a well-being check that I needed help. The first thing he said was, “you’ll be OK.”
By the time he walked through the second time, I’m on the floor heaving, barely able to get a sentence out, slobbering.
He did nothing —no report —nothing. It was a very scary time in my life because I could have died if I hadn’t gotten my breathing under control. Luckily it starts to cool down in the early morning, but I really could have died that night. I think about other people who are in there and they don’t get through it.
It’s one of those situations where when you’re in it, you don’t really understand how bad it is. I’d take a shower to cool down during the day when I could. Then at night, I’d take off my shirt and try to go to sleep. Some days I woke up and I was ready to go home. I knew I couldn’t do another second, but I had to.
Ronnie Biglow, 38, is a lifelong Floridian who grew up in and out of shelters since he was 3. After being incarcerated for felony convictions, he now works as a Peer Support Specialist at Gainesville nonprofit Released Reentry. Biglow said his goal is to help as many people as he can who have a similar background and lack the knowledge or resources to rehabilitate themselves successfully in society.
