an incarcerated person working on a wall to install bricks — An incarcerated person working at a North Carolina prison. As a workaround to a labor shortage, North Carolina is relying on some of its incarcerated workforce to install air conditioning in prisons. (Photo from the Department of Adult Correction website.)

There are many things that have changed for the better in North Carolina prisons over the last century.

That said, it’s also true that North Carolina summers have always been miserably hot and that commercial air conditioning was first introduced nearly a century ago — facts that render the lack of air conditioning in many of our state’s prisons today an absolute scandal.

The Department of Correction has been pursuing an initiative to finally end this tortuous situation, but there remains a long way to go as many facilities remain unairconditioned.

And that harsh reality is a threat to everyone in the facility – guards and incarcerated people alike – especially men and women prisoners who are elderly and in bad health.

The bottom line: As with the lack of adequate staff and so many other inhumanities in our prison system, it’s our cheapskate legislature’s refusal to appropriate adequate funds that is ultimately to blame. One wishes each lawmaker would have to spend a summer night in one of these facilities to experience the cruel and unusual punishment their inaction is inflicting.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.