Texas Observer: Texas’ Plantation Prisons: Inside a 200-Year History of Forced Labor Shrouded in Secrecy

Punishments, injuries, and deaths—including from heat—on TDCJ farms are more hidden than they were in the years following convict leasing.

This prison system of forced work is something of a black box. With free-world labor regulations inapplicable, it’s easy for the state to conceal work-related injuries and even deaths, leaving concerned citizens and journalists to cobble together information from inmate letters, lawsuits, and scant medical documentation.

State prison officials today appear to have massively underreported the number of recent deaths related to heat, according to interviews, public health research, and lawsuits. Even in the free world, Texas workers die of heat exposure with disturbing regularity, a problem exacerbated by the climate crisis. Heat deaths are often missed—or concealed—if no one records a body temperature reading soon after death. TDCJ’s reports to the attorney general do not require such readings.