Arizona DCRR Ordered to Fill Prison Medical Staff Vacancies—Again
by Matt Clarke
On June 3, 2024, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (DCRR) was ordered to implement a pilot program that would immediately bring two state prison complexes up to medical staffing levels recommended by experts appointed by the federal court for the District of Arizona. It was the latest salvo from Senior United States District Judge Roslyn O. Silver since finding DCRR’s provision of medical and mental health services to its prisoners “plainly, grossly inadequate,” as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Nov. 2022, p.l.]
The trial that followed that 2022 ruling resulted in a permanent injunction (PI) in April 2023, ordering DCRR to establish and maintain minimum staffing levels—though the Court noted that these were simply the lowest possible staffing levels needed to facilitate a study that could well require significantly higher final staffing levels.
However, the Court found in its most recent ruling on the case that DCRR “did not hire sufficient additional staff”; its privately contracted medical provider, Wexford Health Sources, also “had not come close to hiring required staff.” Because of these delays, the Court ordered staffing experts to go ahead and try to determine what staffing levels would be sufficient without waiting for DCRR to achieve the levels ordered in the PI.
When that staffing plan was then submitted on April 16, 2024, it called for increased staffing over PI levels. DCRR objected, pointing to the lack of funding in its budget. But in its ruling two months later, the Court brushed those objections aside, noting that the PI “does not excuse noncompliance based on a lack of funds” because “federal courts have concluded prisoners’ constitutional rights do not evaporate when a state opts not to adequately fund prison services.”
Judge Silver accused Defendants of engaging in numerous delaying tactics, including filing “objections that are preposterous.” However, requiring DCCR and its contractors to fully staff the entire prison system at the levels recommended by the experts might cause disruptions, she allowed. To minimize this risk, the Court ordered a pilot program with full staffing at two prison complexes which together house 8% of DCRR’s prisoner population.
That June 2024 order included a requirement for the pilot program to begin within two weeks and to be fully staffed within two months. The Court also required interim status reports starting at the two-month mark, noting its “concern” that “much of the briefing regarding the staffing plan reflected Defendants’ continued resistance to meaningful efforts” to provide constitutionally sufficient levels of care and “avoid catastrophic outcomes.”
“At this point, Defendants have admitted more staff is necessary and it is difficult to view their behavior as anything other than attempts to delay issuance of a statewide staffing plan,” Judge Silver declared, adding: “The Court’s patience has run out.” See: Jensen v. Thornell, USDC (D. Ariz.), Cause No. 2:12-cv-00601.
State lawmakers are not just starving DCRR of funds for needed staff; many in the GOP-dominated legislature mounted objections that have slowed roll-out of air conditioning in state prisons—apparently unconcerned or unable to imagine that qualified staff candidates refuse to work in oven-like temperatures made barely tolerable by “swamp coolers.”
“It’s very counterproductive … that some of my colleagues do not see this as a priority,” said state Rep. Analise Ortiz (D-Dist. 24). “When somebody is sentenced to prison, their punishment is the fact that they’re being removed by society and isolated to serve out the sentence—not to be tortured in a prison cell with 115 to 120 degree temperatures.”
Additional source: Politico
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