Glowing like an atomic peach, the summer sun vaulted from Lake Livingston and hung in the cloudless sky like a thousand heat lamps from hell. Inside Riverside's Ellis Unit, prison inmates stripped to their boxers and, with bland resignation, swabbed their dripping bodies.
Come summer, Houston's hot. Pavement buckles; lawns wither; tempers flare. Houston's mercifully air conditioned, though, and those living without the cooling breeze are the subject of public concern and largess.

But in Texas' state prisons - where the summer heat index can top 100 degrees - the wages of sin is sweat. In 112 prisons scattered from the Panhandle to Beaumont, only 19 are air conditioned. And those, say prison officials, generally are reserved for the sick and mentally ill.

Details.

How do you handle the summer heat?