The Arizona Department of Corrections was fined over $1 million for failing to meet healthcare guidelines, marking the second time since 2019.
U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver held the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry in contempt for failing to meet healthcare guidelines that were established in May 2019, court records show. The verdict on Wednesday, Feb. 24, issued the state to pay $1.1 million within 14 days of the decision.
The state agreed to be 70% compliant with the healthcare guidelines in the previous settlement in order to prevent more fines. However, in 2019, the department was held in contempt for failing to meet enough of the health care guidelines. Silver found the state failing in 34 measures and fined them for non-compliance in over 22 of the measures.
ADC released a statement on the matter earlier this week, “Over the past six years, ADCRR has met 75% of its performance measures, which we believe represents our commitment to comprehensive healthcare services across our department. The effort to improve these services is ongoing.”
The court is only applying this fine for the month of February but in order to prevent further fines, which could add up to $17 million, the state must be able to explain why it should not be fined the entire year. The fines will be used to pay for an analysis of staffing and adequacy of prison healthcare, Silver said.
The original lawsuit, known as Parsons v. Ryan, was filed against the state prison system in 2012 in support of over 33,000 inmates by the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona (ACLU) and Perkins Coie LLP. The lawsuit claimed lack of care within Arizona’s 48 correctional facilities, including inclusive health care, dental and mental health care.
Corene Kendrick, a deputy director at ACLU, also played a role in this case. Kendrick was the attorney with the Prison Law Office and participated in many counsel monitoring visits. Kendrick has been to eight of 10 of the Arizona state prison and has engaged with the prisoners to hear their experiences, especially during the pandemic.
“They uniformly said that the only information they had about the virus was from television, or word-of-mouth from other incarcerated people or staff,” Kendrick told the court. “A different man said he hoped that when COVID-19 came to the unit, that it would kill him quickly because ‘I don’t want to live like this.’”
The settlement was reached in 2014 requiring the state to meet more than 100 healthcare guidelines covering issues like providing for prisoners with diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions, caring for pregnant prisoners, and improving the rules for prisoners with serious mental illnesses in solitary confinement.
Inmates with mental illnesses in solitary confinement are now allowed to have a minimum of 19 hours a week outside of their cell rather than six hours per week. During the 19 hours, some of the time must include mental health treatment and other programming. The ADC is also required to prevent guards from using pepper spray on prisoners, using it when necessary to avoid serious injury.
The settlement also included other demands such as: requiring the department to explain its noncompliance for the past several months, asking both sides to recommend experts to do a system-wide investigation of staffing and ample healthcare, and ordering the prisons to allow more out-of-cell time for people in maximum custody.
Kendrick said the fact that the Department of Corrections was found to be defiant of court mandated policies was “striking,” and is a validation of equal rights across the board, including inmates.
“Incarcerated people have a constitutional and moral right to adequate health care and decent conditions,” Kendrick said. “We expect the other state Department of Corrections will take notice: If you do not respect the basic rights of incarcerated people, there will be consequences.”
Contact the reporter at amunoz@asu.edu
