Abbreviation ADC Employees 10,000 | Formed 1875 Annual budget 1,131,935.4 | |
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Preceding agency Yuma Territorial Prison Legal personality Governmental: Government agency | ||
The Arizona Department of Corrections is statutory responsible for the incarceration of inmates in 10 prisons in the U.S. state of Arizona. As of December 2015, the ADC manages over 42,643 imprisoned inmates and over 5,466 inmates who have been paroled or that are statutorily released. ADC is also in involved in recruitment and training of Correctional Officers at the Correctional Officer Training Academy (COTA). It has its headquarters in Downtown Phoenix.
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Death row
The male death row is located in the Browning Unit of Arizona State Prison Complex – Eyman. The female death row is in the Lumley Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville, Executions occur at the Central Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence. As of 2010 one Arizona death row inmate is confined in West Virginia.
Facilities
There are currently forty-eight state prisons, geographically grouped into fourteen Complexes and two correctional treatment facilities, for state prisoners in the U.S. state of Arizona. This number does not include federal prisons, detention centers for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or county jails
As of 2007 Arizona had exported more than 2000 prisoners to privately run facilities in Oklahoma and Indiana, a number that would have been higher if not for a riot of Arizona prisoners at the GEO Group's New Castle Correctional Facility on April 27, 2007, protesting the practice. As of 2013, the states of Vermont, California and Hawaii export prisoners to facilities in Arizona.
Incidents
In July, 2014 a teacher was raped at the Meadows Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex at Eyman. She had been left alone in a room full of sex offenders who stabbed and gang-raped her. The radio she was issued was tuned to a frequency not in use. The guards failed to make their required checks. The state settled the matter for an undisclosed amount.
In July 2015, at the medium security housing area at the Arizona State Prison-Kingman a four-day riot damaged facilities so extensively as to require major repairs. More than one thousand inmates had to be moved to other locations. The facility was being run by Management and Training Corporation under a contract with the department.
In August 2015, Cynthia Apkaw hung herself in her cell. Guards had not made their required checks and later faked records to conceal their misconduct.
In February 2016, guards failed conduct the required checks on Scott Saba who hung himself in his cell. His body was discovered by guards who had finished their shifts and so who did not have the equipment required to provide aid.
In April 2016 thirteen prison staff were fired and six more disciplined as a result of an investigation into the two most recent prison suicides.
Fallen officers
Since 1967, eight officers have died while on duty.