Air conditioning out for part of Lumberton Correctional Institution amid heat wave

LUMBERTON, N.C. (WTVD) -- As North Carolina faces a heat wave, the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction confirms that the air conditioning is broken in one wing of the Lumberton Correctional Institution. They said it's a maintenance issue and they are waiting on a part to complete the repair.

One woman, Kendrah, whose husband is incarcerated in the affected unit, reached out to ABC11 with concerns about the conditions.

"I love his little smile here," she said, showing a picture of her husband.

Photos, text messages, and phone calls are all Kendrah has to stay connected. The couple met more than a decade ago and their connection was instant.

"He loved the fact that I had kids already. He took them in as his own and they took him in as their own," she said, adding that he quickly embraced her three children.

Her husband was open with her about a nonviolent criminal past.

"In his teenage and twenties. He got a few felonies, nonviolent," she said.

"He kind of fell back on what he knew," she added, explaining that he pleaded guilty to more recent charges, which were largely theft-related. He is now serving several years at Lumberton CI.

According to the Department of Adult Correction, the temperature inside the affected wing has been in the upper 70s to low 80s.

"It's been triple digits outside and in the eighties at night, there's no way for the inside to cool down," she said, skeptical that temperatures haven't risen higher than the low 80s amid the heatwave.

The DAC said the AC issues at Lumberton CI is a maintenance issue, but acknowledged a larger, ongoing concern: many correctional facilities across the state have never had air conditioning. A new push in recent years is aiming to change that. Right now, 21% of prison beds across North Carolina don't have AC, but the plan is to make sure all facilities are fully air conditioned by the end of next year.

This isn't a problem unique to North Carolina. A study by public health researchers at Brown University found that extreme heat is a problem in prisons across the country. Their research found that just one day of above-average temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in prison deaths across the country, and that suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heat wave.

"Everybody needs a voice," she said. "For them, if us as their family and us as a community don't speak out for them, no one will."

ABC11 extended an offer to the DAC spokesperson to do an interview, but they declined and sent us the following statement instead:

"The NC Department of Adult Correction recognizes that heat can be a serious health and safety issue for everyone - our staff and the people in our custody alike - and we do all we can to keep people comfortable in hot weather.

One wing of one dorm at Lumberton CI is experiencing a problem with its air conditioning system, and a contractor is seeking parts for repairs. That wing houses 34 of the 693 people incarcerated at Lumberton today, and temperatures in that wing are in the high 70s to low 80s.

Air conditioning is functioning normally throughout the rest of the institution. There have been no heat-related incidents or illnesses. Fans are in place and being used to circulate air from cooled areas to the uncooled area."

In a separate statement, the DAC also included the following information:

"There have been other temporary outages of air-conditioning recently - at Eastern Correctional Institution in Greene County and at Scotland Correctional Institution in Laurinburg, both last week and now both repaired. Our NCDAC Heat Stress Management Plan outlines protocols that staff follow during high temperatures, to keep offenders and staff safe."

To learn more about the plans to add full air conditioning at facilities across the state, click here.