Texas 'lionesses' win fight to air-condition prisons by 2029 for 88,000 inmates

Formerly incarcerated Texas women who formed the Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance have won a major legal victory after years of documenting extreme heat inside state prisons. A federal judge ordered Texas to air-condition all prisons by 2029. Roughly 88,697 incarcerated people were housed in units without air conditioning heading into summer 2026.