By C1 Staff
WESTVILLE, Ind. — Inmates at the Westville Correctional Facility are claiming that heat has been cut off to their cells in retaliation for a recent food protest.
According to the Post Trib, the DOC said there are no records of the heat being shut off.
THe inmates declined to use their names, saying they feared reprisal from prison officials. They cited inch-thick forst on windows and melting ice dripping down walls. T-shirts and towels used to stop drafts from windows were frozen solid.
“Clearly, you can take the temperature of the cell, and you’re gonna find 40 degrees or lower. Now that’s cold,” said one inmate by telephone. “We’re not supposed to be in these cells with ice caked on the windows and water dripping everywhere.”
He said cell temperatures have been cold since the Jan. 5 snowstorm, at times going below 50 degrees. In response to that, John Schrader, public information officer at Westville, said temperature logs of that particular pod indicate the building temperature went below 65 degrees only once, during a maintenance issue with two heating coils, and officials promptly issued extra coats and blankets.
“Apparently, the inmates are talking about some sort of a heat shutdown, but hte data here shows there was no shutdown except for Jan. 23, and that was for one single day.”
Inmates claim that hte heat was turned off because of a food protest they launched last year after the prison attempted to switch to two hot meals a day and one sack lunch of sandwiches, a side item and a drink.
Officials had wanted to make more time for inmate programs and free up time for corrections officers to work in residential areas, according to the Trib. Schrader claims that the inmates initially accepted the sack lunches, but later changed their minds.
“It’s not like it’s a big issue,” he said. "[Inmates] asked for sack lunches, we gave it to them. They asked for hot meals, and they got their hot meals back.”
Inmates continue to claim retaliation, saying that the heat problems were not coincidental.