Temperatures in the northern part of the state are expected to hit as low as the mid-20s today, yet not all prisons in the state have glass in their windows to keep out the chill. In some, there are only bars to prevent escape.

Joseph Poe, an inmate at Limestone Correctional Facility near Athens, said the window in his cell has been open for the eight years he’s been there. Poe and two other inmates in his dorm told AL.com that typically, prison workers provide winter jackets and plastic sheeting, which they use to block the cold air in the fall and winter.

But, as of October 31, that hasn’t happened, they said.

“Limestone is the coldest place on earth,” said Stacy George, a former corrections officer who worked for over a decade at Limestone. He confirmed there are plenty of exterior windows that don’t have glass and many other windows that have holes. He also said plastic is distributed each year to try and keep out the cold from the prison, which is the most northern correctional facility in the state.

A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections disagreed.

“The only windows with ‘bars only’ are interior, therefore pose no heating issues,” Kelly Betts, an ADOC spokesperson, told AL.com last week. “If a window is broken, it should be reported by inmates, and it will be repaired through the ADOC Facilities Management Division.”

She also said there were “no broken exterior windows at Limestone. As damages are reported, Maintenance works to make those repairs.”

“There is no distribution of plastic for windows,” she added.

Poe said he’s reported the window numerous times over the years and it’s never been repaired. Poe was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2014 for fatally shooting his wife, which he pleaded guilty to after he led investigators to her remains. He said he has used the distributed plastic for the eight years he’s been imprisoned; other cells have the same issue, he added.

An unrelated lawsuit filed in federal court by an inmate who “baked to death” in a Birmingham-area prison points out similar open-air windows at that facility, asserting that Thomas Rutledge’s autopsy report showed he was found sitting at his cell window “with his head/face out the window believed attempting to breath/obtain cool/cold air.”

Betts, the prison spokesperson, said winter jackets were distributed starting on October 14, but couldn’t provide a date when every inmate would receive their cold-weather gear. She said each facility “operates independently.”

Poe said the state agency running the prisons doesn’t appear to know about the conditions in Limestone. “If they would come up here and look,” he said, “we don’t have glass in half of the windows that we got.”

The Alabama Department of Corrections is embroiled in a federal lawsuit with the Department of Justice over what the DOJ calls unconstitutional living conditions in the lock-ups, among other things. The case is set to go to trial next fall.

Comments on unlivable conditions at Alabama prisons swirled for years. Recently, videos filmed from inside prison walls have gained traction on TikTok and other social media platforms, showing sick people with seemingly no medical attention, rats running through the cells, and filth covering the walls. Inmates who spoke to AL.com echoed those accounts.

Poe said sometimes officials do tour the prison, but don’t see the worst areas. “They come up and walk in the dorm. They never walk around and ask… then, they would know. But they don’t. They don’t ask nothing. They don’t ever talk to the inmates.”

“As soon as they walk out that backdoor, they forget,” said Poe as an automated message sounded on the prison phone call, warning of one minute left.

“I would want to forget too. I don’t blame them. It’s a nightmare.”