SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As climate change exacerbates the risks of extreme heat across California, the state’s prison officials plan to embark on a $38 million pilot program to figure out how to keep their prison cells cool.

It comes after years of complaints from prisoners about dangerous temperatures during the state’s brutal summer heat waves, warnings by advocates that the problem will only get worse as the planet warms and the death of an incarcerated woman last year during California’s hottest month on record — which officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation insist was unrelated to the heat.

But don’t expect the prisons to become air conditioned anytime soon.

The pilot, approved by the Legislature this year amid a budget deficit, is a limited test o

See Full Page