HUNTSVILLE, Tex. — IN August, right around the time when the Texas summer heat was at its brutal worst, the state’s prison system finalized a bid to replace its aging swine-production facilities with six new climate-controlled modular barns, at a cost of $750,000.

The pigs raised for inmate consumption were going to get relief from the heat, but the state’s inmates would continue to suffer. In the last six years, at least 14 inmates died from heat stroke or hyperthermia in overheated Texas prisons, where air-conditioning is scarce and temperatures can reach 130 degrees.

The correctional officers, whose working conditions are the same as the inmates’ living conditions, have taken note. Several inmates’ families have filed wrongful-death lawsuits, and the officers’ union supports them. We also support those officers who plan to take legal action against the state because of intolerable heat in their workplace.

Texas has the largest state-run prison system in the country, with over 152,000 inmates currently incarcerated. In 1978, the courts forced Texas to expand its system, which has since grown from 18 prisons to the current 109. To feed its vast inmate population and keep costs down, the prison system raises its own livestock and crops across 141,000 acres.