Study Finds that Many of Colorado’s Prisons Are Poorly Equipped to Handle Natural Disasters

Prisoners face extreme temperatures, overflowing sewage, and respiratory illness across Colorado.

A study that was published in Sage Journals this fall collected information from 35 formerly incarcerated participants across the state and found that many of the region’s prisons amplify environmental harm to those housed within the infrastructure. Extreme temperatures are one of many issues that these prisons face. Threats like wildfire and sewage flooding are also at the top of the list.

65% of this small sampling of prisoners were at some point at risk of experiencing the negative side effects of these shifts, leaving some unlucky prisoners with respiratory issues from poor air quality, with some study participants describing their prison experience as being “surrounded by steel walls like a tuna can” and “super cold all the time.”

A bare-bones cell at the Colorado Supermax Prison

“Somebody could probably go into shock because you’re in a room full of steel and concrete. You’re not in there with any kind of blanket or any kind of real… Nothing. Two sheets,” a former prisoner told researchers.

Yellow Scene sat down with Dr. Shideh Dashti, an Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Administration in the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering department at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the study, to better understand its findings.

Several years ago, Dashti helped start an initiative in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU Boulder called RISE: Resilient Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, which brought experts together to evaluate hazard resilience, environmental sustainability, and environmental justice across a variety of disciplines.

The pilot project involved the evaluation of prisons, which had previously been left unstudied particularly by the design professional. Dashti and her companions found that some of the greatest issues that Colorado prisons are facing include disproportionate exposure to multiple climatic extremes, “we showed that approximately 75% of Colorado’s incarceration infrastructure is in an elevated exposure group for at least one of these hazards: wildfire, flood, extreme heat, landslide,” she said.

The October 2024 study showed a widespread evaluation of some of those impacts and came on the heels of reports from other national prisons in locations like North Carolina after hurricanes Helene and Milton ravaged the east. While some prisons in the region were evacuated, others remained occupied, with no power or running water for excessive stretches of time.

While hurricane flooding isn’t among Colorado’s biggest threats to prisons, the study’s authors found that at least three-quarters of Colorado’s prisons and jails, or 80% of the state’s incarcerated individuals, are likely to experience at least one natural disaster in 2025. Half of those facilities are at risk of experiencing extreme heat, defined by FEMA as 2 to 3 days of temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

While it’s difficult to point to a single cause or oversight that led to such drastic conditions, recent events have made it increasingly obvious that Colorado’s prisoners are at a heightened risk of experiencing devastation from climate disasters. In many cases, the authors report inadequate policies and dated infrastructure leave incarcerated people uniquely vulnerable to problems like smoke inhalation and heat exposure.

Another significant concern that the study’s findings highlighted is the prison infrastructure itself, “the ways in which incarceration infrastructure is designed, built, and maintained in particular amplify environmental harm and vulnerability along axes of temperature, air quality, and water supply even before exposure to climate hazards,” added Dashti.

The study’s final concern revolves around the mitigation of risks and found that those who are incarcerated and their families have huge limitations in terms of making changes to these conditions. “These three factors lead to what we refer to as “extreme risk” that are harmful and inhumane,” explained Dashti.

Equally as concerning was the transparency, or lack thereof, from Colorado prisons, which was not available upon request. The study stated, “The carceral system in the US—from the federal Bureau of Prisons to state Departments of Correction to individual wardens—actively resists attempts to study it, and regularly restricts access to those under its purview if it seems that the resulting scholarship will cast the system in a negative light.”

“We were not granted access to any information within the Colorado prisons at all, though we tried hard. Our only resort in the end was to use publicly available data on location and exposure to hazards, as well as interviewing formerly incarcerated folks.it is currently nearly impossible to acquire information about prison conditions, even by academics like us,” said Dashti. While prison conditions are reason enough to raise an eyebrow, internal procedures involving the improvement of those conditions appear impossible to find.

Determining whether there’s relief in sight for Colorado prisoners is difficult. Prison transparency could offer a start. An engineering perspective would suggest adjustments to the infrastructure should also be made.

Dashti suggested, “My first recommendation is for the design professionals (engineers and architects) to consider changing their design approach, codes of ethics, and participation in building and maintaining such facilities.”

As temperatures and climate disasters become more frequent, prison conditions will likely worsen. “Overall, it is our belief that the current carceral infrastructure in this country creates cruel and unusual punishment for those incarcerated who tend to be disproportionately from minority communities. This is a severe human rights violation and social justice concern,” said Dashti.

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