Extreme Temperatures in Prisons

Investigating Extreme Health Risks at the Nexus of Climate Change, Incarceration, and Societal Re-Entry in Colorado

Project Overview:

This pilot study investigates how extreme temperatures in Colorado state prisons affect the physical and mental health of incarcerated individuals and how infrastructural, institutional, and epidemiological factors interact to heighten these risks. Using a community-based participatory approach and Forensic Vulnerability Modeling (FVM), which combines qualitative interviews, focus groups, and 3D architectural reconstructions to examine environments typically inaccessible to researchers, the project partners with formerly incarcerated participants and collaborators at a community organization to recruit individuals recently released from Colorado prisons. Through in-depth interviews and collaborative model-building, the team will map prison infrastructure, document the health impacts of extreme heat and cold, and analyze how facility design, operational practices, and population health conditions shape vulnerability. By generating urgently needed data on climate-related health harms in carceral settings, the study aims to inform future research and policy advocacy, with findings shared across community organizations, policymakers, and academic audiences to support ethical policy development and improve conditions for high-risk incarcerated populations in Colorado and beyond.