Judge: Arizona violates prisoners’ rights with poor care

PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge has ruled Arizona has been violating the constitutional rights of incarcerated people in state-run prisons by providing them with inadequate medical and mental health care. Judge Roslyn Silver said the problems stem largely from not having enough health employees to care for the roughly 25,000 incarcerated people housed in state-run prisons.

She said corrections officials have made no significant attempts to fix the understaffing problem. Silver said Corrections Director David Shinn’s claim that prisoners often have greater access to health services than people who aren’t locked up was “completely detached from reality.”

Shinn’s office had no immediate comment on the ruling.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.