'Cruel' Heat Discovered During Surprise Brooklyn Jail Visit

DOWNTOWN, BROOKLYN — A surprise visit to the Brooklyn House of Detention on Sunday found its 450 detainees and staff in "boiling-hot" conditions with little relief from fans, cold showers or ice water, Council Member Brad Lander said.

Lander toured the 275 Atlantic Ave. jail with staff from the Board of Corrections who were inspecting the complex, which houses those that are waiting for trial. In a thread on Twitter he revealed that when he and the staff went inside, they found the jail "cruelly hot" and concluded it is in need of a better heat emergency plan.

The visit came at the tail end of a weekend where temperatures spiked to 99 degrees — with a 110 degree heat index value — in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio called a state of emergency for the heat wave.

"We could - and must - do better w/stronger heat emergency plans," Lander said in one of his final Tweets. "We could have had enough fans, set up and running. We could have cold showers. We could have more ice water on every floor. We could have had a better system for checking on heat-sensitive individuals."

The council member said that many of these problems are due to poor infrastructure in the jail, where none of the housing units and only some of the staff areas have air conditioning.

The complex was using fans to cool down the hallways and cells, but typically only had one fan at the end of a hallway, leaving those further down the line of a dozen cells in a row without any relief. Lander said that 10 new fans that had arrived on Friday, but were sitting in boxes because the staff that would set them up don't work on the weekends.

"Just how hot was it?" Lander continued. "Well, we did not have thermometers, and somehow DOC interprets the rules only to take the temperature in the air-conditioned medical clinic (where of course it was quite comfortable). But it was certainly in the 80s, probably the mid-80s."

The inspection also revealed that the showers, which are meant to run cold when temperatures are above 80 degrees, were still running with only hot water.

The staff, Lander said, were "generally doing what they could" to help give detainees relief.

An afternoon lockdown was canceled so that they could stay in the slightly-less-hot day room, which had cooler water, and those that were particularly heat-sensitive were for the most part moved to cooler areas.

Lander did say, though, that at least one detainee, who had an insulin dependence and asthma, had not been moved to a cooler area until the inspectors pointed it out to the staff.

"In general, in many conversations with individuals, I talked to people who were miserable, but mostly not at immediate risk of severe health incidents," Lander said. "However ...I’m not confident that all heat-sensitive individuals were getting the attention they needed to prevent an emergency.

One floor in the jail was under a 24-hour lockdown that ended Sunday morning because there had been a slashing, Lander added.

The detainees at the Brooklyn jail were not the only incarcerated people in New York City that suffered during the heat wave.

Advocates with Brooklyn Defender Services also reported a lack of air conditioning at Rikers Island. The Department of Corrections was not providing summer clothes as required and some were getting in trouble for taking their shirts off, the advocates said.

Lander pointed to the infrastructure problems at both jails as a reason why the city's plan to close Rikers Island and reconstruct the Brooklyn jail is necessary.

A proposal to replace the Atlantic Avenue jail with a new, larger facility as part of the city's plan to replace Rikers with four jails spread throughout the boroughs is going through the review process.

Sunday's visit was organized by the Board of Correction after City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Council Member Keith Powers sent a letter to the NYC Department of Corrections Commissioner.

Lander said he plans to follow up on the results of the inspection.

"I’m committed to following up w/them, Dep't of Corrections & City Hall, to make sure we do the things we must before the next heat emergency, and for the longer-term too, to dramatically reduce the number of people awaiting trial in such cruel & inhumane conditions," he said.

Update: The Department of Corrections provided Patch with the following statement, but did not respond to specific questions about the result of Sunday's inspection at the Brooklyn House of Detention: “We take the health and safety of those in our custody seriously, and we are looking into these reports to address any issues accordingly. At this time, Correction Health Services is unaware of any reports of anyone in our custody experiencing heat-related health emergencies, and we have had no reports of staff emergencies as well.”