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Special Project: The Cold, Hard Facts
Air conditioning has long been a fact of life in Florida, the hottest state in the nation. Rising temperatures means AC is increasingly a matter of life and death. 

In the hothouse

Extreme heat is rising along with the state's prison population, yet three-quarters of Florida's prison beds are in unairconditioned dorms.
  • Illustration by Bonny Matejowsky
    Illustration by Bonny Matejowsky
    In the hothouse
    Bonny Matejowsky
    Roughly three-quarters of Florida prisons lack AC. Despite wide acknowledgment that Florida must cool its cells as temperatures rise, the state has not been able to make progress on a challenge that is also making prisons more dangerous and guards’ lives miserable.
  • Bonny Matejowsky/WUFT News
    In his own words
    Ronnie Biglow
    Ronnie Biglow of Gainesville, who was incarcerated in FDOC institutions from 2020 to 2025, offers this first-person account of Florida prison heat.