Last month, in a high-profile victory for Louisiana prisoners, a federal judge acknowledged the intolerable conditions endured by prisoners working on the “Farm Line” at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and ordered that the Department of Corrections make swift improvements.
But so far — though temps have climbed to the point where there are near-daily extreme heat warnings — not much has changed, lawyers for the prisoners allege.
Angola prison needed to “take immediate measures to correct the glaring deficiencies in their heat-related policies,” U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson ruled in early July. Those measures included providing more shade and rest for Farm Line workers — incarcerated men forced to do manual agricultural labor for pennies an hour, or sometimes no pay at all.
Jackson also ordered the prison to provide sunscreen and other necessary protective supplies and clothing, expand the medications on their “heat-pathology” list, and create procedures to protect field workers who suffer from certain health conditions.
In response to the DOC’s appeal, the Fifth Circuit narrowed Jackson’s ruling, but still found Jackson’s order to be a practical remedy. “Common sense indicates that working for long hours in the summer sun without shade, sufficient rest, or adequate protective equipment poses serious health risks,” wrote the court.
Two weeks ago, on July 22, the Farm Line’s lawyers from the Promise Justice Initiative, visited the prison with several doctors to view conditions on the Farm Line.
They saw scant progress. Farm Line workers — including the elderly — are still being forced to work in brutal conditions with limited shade, water and rest, they say. The few changes the prison has made to Farm Line operations, including the purchase of a 10×10 popup tent for shade, are “wholly inadequate.”
“That single tent provides only the most minimal shade over a few square feet, nowhere near the coverage that would be required to provide a cooling function for even a quarter of the men laboring that day,” attorneys wrote. “In fact, even if it were possible to squeeze 20 men (or even half that) under the small patch of shade from the single tent, packing their bodies into such a small area would increase rather than reduce the risks of heat-related injury.”
During their visit to Angola, Farm Line men were taking breaks in the direct sun, as seen first-hand by PJI lawyers.
That “does not achieve the purpose of taking a break,” the lawyers wrote. “If someone were to attempt to get out of the sun and squeeze into the limited shade offered by the pop-up tent or to get a cool drink during the break time, a significant percentage of that five-minute break would be spent walking (not resting), to get to the tent and cooler.”
Occupational safety regulators monitoring conditions for Louisiana workers outside of prison advise that shade provided by employers must actually help cool employees off, with cooling mechanisms if necessary. Shade “is not adequate when heat in the area of shade defeats the purpose of shade, which is to allow the body to cool,” according to California state regulations cited by Louisiana officials in an occupational, heat-related death investigation of a sugarcane worker.
“The amount of shade present shall be at least enough to accommodate the number of employees on recovery or rest periods, so that they can sit in a normal posture fully in the shade without having to be in physical contact with each other,” the regulations state. “The shade shall be located as close as practicable to the areas where employees are working.”
During the lawyers’ visit to Angola, the single porta-potty for workers did not have any soap or toilet paper.
The visit seemed to raise the question whether it was worth tinkering with little fixes to the Farm Line when, by design, the Farm Line is not meant to be rehabilitative and “serves no penological purpose,” according to lawyers for the prisoners. After their visit, they again filed with the court, asking for a halt to all Farm Line operations — at least until the prison takes greater steps to protect the workers in extreme heat.
The filings are part of a broader proposed class-action lawsuit brought by prisoners at Angola and the advocacy organization Voice of the Experienced, which claims the Farm Line is “designed to ‘break’ incarcerated men and ensure their submission.”
The work is especially dangerous in the extreme heat. In mid-June the prisoners urged Judge Jackson to pause Farm Line operations any time the heat index reached above 88 degrees.
Around 3,000 people visit the emergency room for heat-related illness in Louisiana, according to a report by the state’s Department of Health that analyzed data between 2010 and 2020 and found that visits increased as temperatures increased.
Each year, the analysis found, there are around 10 heat-related deaths in Louisiana, which experiences some of the nation’s highest average temperatures compounded by the state’s infamous high humidity, which “worsens the impact of heat by impairing the body’s ability to cool by evaporation,” as Jackson notes in his education, which cited the report as he concluded: “Adequately dealing with the heat in Louisiana has become a matter of life and death.”
Climate change also exacerbates the situation, as Jackson noted in his decision, citing a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of a “99% chance” that 2024 would rank as one of the five warmest years on record. The LDH report warned that the threat of heat exposure in Louisiana is “intensifying,” as the “frequency, severity, and duration of extreme heat events increases due to climate change.”
Prison officials oppose PJI’s motion to bring the Farm Line to a complete halt in the worst heat. Banning work any time would deprive incarcerated people at Angola and other Louisiana prisons access to fresh fruits and vegetables, the DOC argued, and “would effectively open the flood gates to cease any and all work in any institution across the South.”
Ultimately, Jackson declined to halt Farm Line operations during extreme heat. “Agricultural labor across the South does not cease when heat index values reach 88 degrees Fahrenheit,” he wrote.
But Jackson ordered that the DOC act swiftly to improve conditions.
Prior to the visit by the doctors and PJI attorneys, prison officials said that they had brought Farm Line procedures in line with Jackson’s ruling. They pointed to the purchase of the 10×10 tent, and said that guards now offer prisoners sunscreen before and after shifts and upon request when in the field.
When the heat index rises above 88 degrees, they attested, they mandate five minute breaks every half-hour, per prison policy.
Those “improvements” barely address the judge’s order, PJI lawyers argued after the visit. It “borders on bad faith” to think that the changes would be enough to ensure the health and safety of prisoners working in the heat, they contend.
Instead, Farm Line workers should be entitled to a “15-minute break every hour, under shade, with ice, water, and sports/electrolyte drinks,” the attorneys say. The prison should also provide the Farm Line with hats with brims and neck flaps, work pants, protective long-sleeve shirts, socks, lace-up work boots, and proper gloves, attorneys say.
The prison also should exempt people over the age of 65 from working in extreme heat, lawyers argue, and waive healthcare charges for any prisoner on the Farm Line.
Currently, when workers on the Farm Line experience symptoms of heat-related illness and seek medical care, “they are charged co-payments in the amount of $1.00 for non-emergency and $2.00 for emergency care, even though they make only two cents per hour,” according to court filings.