February 2025: The Prison Law Office, ACLU, and Disability Rights Arizona asked a federal judge today to appoint a receiver to take over the management of healthcare in Arizona prisons. The request was made in a long-running class action lawsuit originally filed in 2012 on behalf of the nearly 30,000 people incarcerated by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR). The receiver, an independent authority appointed by the court, would assume control of ADCRR’s medical and mental health care systems and ensure that they meet constitutional standards.

January 2025: Prison Law Office has submitted an amicus curiae brief in CJLF v. CDCR, supporting CDCR’s use of its Proposition 57 authority to grant increased credits for good conduct and participation in rehabilitative programming.

January 2025: In a report filed on January 7, 2025, court-appointed experts in Jensen v. Thornell found “serious and pervasive systemic health care delivery failures” in Arizona state prisons that “place the residents at significant risk of serious harm, including death.” The experts told the judge: “And patients are dying. Unnecessarily.” The experts found that “it will be difficult, but more likely impossible, for [the prison system] to emerge on the other side of this Court’s Injunction if it continues to outsource the provision of health care.” The experts found that the state prison system “has insufficient leadership to promote the type of major change that has to be forthcoming in order to be compliant with the health care-related requirements of the Injunction.” The experts included in their 96 page report detailed discussion of a number of deaths in custody that illustrate the many compounding failures that preceded the deaths.