Image by Wesley Tingey.

“I’ve been sick damn near two weeks. I’ve got a bad cold. I probably have pneumonia, man,” says “Jordan” when I interview him again in late February. The heat and hot water have not been working, and many prisoners are sick.

“This place is so cold, man, ain’t no heat down here in this building, man. And it’s messed up. I’ve been sick, man. That’s probably why I sound so funny today. They ain’t got no heat down here in this damn prison, man, and no hot water. Nothing, man. It gets down to 19, 20 degrees, man,” he says.

He’s “been laying under the blanket for about two, three weeks,” he says, adding, “Man, I’m thinking about building me a fire inside the prison camp. I know I might get wrote up, man. Ever since I got stabbed, man, it’s felt like everything has just been going down hill ever since then. Things have been bad in this prison. This is a messed up prison down here in Union Springs. And then when you go to the chow hall and sit down to eat your food, man, it’s so cold in this prison, you can’t even eat, man. It’s probably 19 degrees in the kitchen, man. It’s freezing around here in Bullock. I’m trembling talking to you, man. I’ve been in the cold all day, man. I went to the doctor. The doctor told me I might have a trace of pneumonia.”

Jordan knows five or six other people with pneumonia in his dorm.

Asked if he’s submitted complaints about the heat, “Man, we all told the warden. I told the head warden. I told the deputy warden. I told the damn lieutenant. I told the captain. I told the sergeant. I told the COs. I told everybody,” he answers, adding that he and other prisoners even asked loved........

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