New Feature: Subscriber Feedback! Also Update On Receivership In Arizona

Highlighted Stories

Editor's Note

Before we begin the Editor’s Note, this week we are announcing a new feature in the Weekly Update —subscriber feedback. At the end of this Editor's Note you will find a Your Turn prompt where you will be asked for specific feedback. In the future we plan also to offer this feature for some of our Follow Ups.

Now to Arizona.

This week's Editor's Note returns to the ongoing litigation that led Federal Judge Roslyn Silver to place healthcare at the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) into receivership. In previous Weekly Updates, we noted that both the plaintiffs and the ADCRR had agreed upon Annette Chambers-Smith, the former director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, to serve as the receiver. As the Arizona Capital Times reports the judge has finalized the appointment. The ADCRR continues to vigorously oppose the receivership and has sought to stay Judge Silver's order.

The article from the Arizona Mirror adds another layer to that dispute. The ADCRR sought permission to hire physicians who are not board certified or board eligible, a request Judge Silver denied. The disagreement is especially noteworthy because, in 2023, the ADCRR agreed to increase physician salaries as part of an injunction. That increase reportedly amounted to just two dollars.

As with so many stories COCHS has covered over the years, the underlying issue is staffing. A two-dollar salary increase is unlikely to attract highly qualified physicians to work in correctional settings, where the work is demanding and often dangerous. This week's State Roundup includes a story from Connecticut in which correctional staff were assaulted by an incarcerated person during a medical examination, a reminder of the challenging environments in which correctional healthcare professionals practice.

What particularly caught our attention in the third highlighted article from Tucson.com was the advocates' argument that part of the ADCRR's healthcare crisis stems from Arizona's decision to contract with proprietary correctional healthcare vendors—currently NaphCare, which was recently barred from providing correctional healthcare in New York State. According to the article, the contract reportedly includes line items specifying the vendor's expected profit and pays a flat per diem rate for each incarcerated person. Critics argue that such an arrangement creates a perverse incentive to limit the amount of healthcare provided. Perhaps recognizing this concern, Judge Silver has authorized the receiver to unilaterally terminate existing healthcare contracts.

Even if the receiver chooses to exercise that authority, significant challenges remain. California's prison healthcare receivership demonstrated that one of the principal strategies for improving care was substantially increasing physician compensation to recruit and retain qualified medical professionals. That approach came with a significant price tag—precisely what legislatures and governors often seek to avoid. Perhaps mindful of those concerns, Judge Silver emphasized that the receiver's authority would be narrowly defined. At present, Chambers-Smith has access to approximately $2.2 million remaining from previous contempt sanctions imposed on the ADCRR.

The most discouraging aspect of this litigation, however, is its seemingly endless nature. The ADCRR maintains that it has made meaningful improvements while continuing to resist standards the court considers necessary to provide constitutionally adequate healthcare. At the same time, the role of proprietary correctional healthcare vendors is once again being called into question. The case raises a recurring query that has appeared throughout these Weekly Updates: can correctional healthcare be fundamentally improved through litigation and court oversight alone, or does lasting reform require a different framework altogether?

Did COCHS just whisper, "Medicaid?"

Judge Roslyn Silver officially appointed Annette Chambers-Smith, former director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, as receiver and tasked her with righting unconstitutional medical care in the state prison system over the next five years. The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) remains in staunch opposition to the receivership of prison medical care and plans to appeal and ask for a temporary block on the order.

Judge Roslyn Silve rejected a request from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) that it be allowed to hire doctors who don’t meet agreed upon standards, sharply criticizing the state prison agency for failing to increase salaries, as it has been repeatedly advised to do. In 2023, the plaintiffs and the ADCRR had agreed to the terms of the preliminary injunction, including the standards for doctors. The injunction specifically says that the state may need to increase pay for doctors to achieve the terms of the deal. The slight pay increase that did happen — a $2 per hour raise for physicians in 2024 — is “anemic, at best,” plaintiffs wrote. In her order denying the motion to lower the qualifications for prison doctors, Silver concluded that the state has never sought to comply with the repeated recommendations from court-appointed monitors.

In a new order, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver said the state has failed to bring care for inmates up to constitutional standards despite various promises to do better to address claims filed in a 2012 lawsuit. The judge's directive most immediately strips Ryan Thornell, director of the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, of all of his powers to control healthcare for inmates and gives it to the receiver, subject only to Silver's own review. Potentially more importantly, Chambers-Smith, the receiver, has the power to unilaterally end the contracts the state has signed with private companies whose employees have been providing healthcare

Follow Ups

Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets

Editor's Comment: Last week we praised Secretary Kennedy's emphasis on healthier food in correctional settings, while questioning why that concern did not appear to extend to ICE detention facilities under federal control.

Like last week's article, this Follow Up is an op-ed. Writing in City Journal, Stephen Eide and Carolyn Gorman of the Manhattan Institute appear somewhat supportive of Secretary Kennedy's skepticism toward the overprescribing of psychiatric medications. At the same time, they acknowledge a potential tension within the administration. While the Executive Order, Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets, encourages the expanded use of involuntary treatment for some homeless individuals, Secretary Kennedy has questioned prevailing approaches to the treatment of serious mental illness.

The authors also express some skepticism regarding Secretary Kennedy's suggestion that schizophrenia can be cured through a keto diet. To their credit, they argue that decisions about treatment should ultimately defer to established medical expertise. Yet before exploring whether HHS's policies to date reflect the weight of current medical evidence, the discussion shifts to the dangers of allowing American cities to resemble San Francisco or New York. Readers can decide for themselves whether the argument harmonizes the secretary’s beliefs with the executive order.

Last month, President Trump’s Department of Justice issued an opinion clarifying that institution-based psychiatric care did not constitute discrimination against the mentally ill. This rollback of disability law’s so-called “integration mandate” aligns with other actions Trump has taken to expand involuntary treatment. But it contrasts with the “Make America Health Again” (MAHA) approach to mental health favored by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy wants to rein in the “overprescribing” of psychiatric medication. Agencies outside HHS, however, looking to address homelessness, have pushed for more treatment for psychotic disorders.

Forced Labor In Corrections

Editor's Comment: In last week's Editor's Note, we discussed how, in some cases, courts have limited or have themselves been limited as a vehicle for oversight in corrections. In an earlier Editor's Note, we argued that forced labor in correctional settings constitutes a form of slavery. The Law360 article below on the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola brings those two themes together.

Lawyers representing incarcerated plaintiffs argue that the prison's Farm Line work program is tantamount to slavery and that requiring outdoor agricultural labor in extreme heat exposes workers to the risk of death or permanent physical injury. The judge concluded that prison officials had knowingly exposed Farm Line workers to dangerous heat conditions but found that his hands were tied by the precedent established in Parker v. Hooper, concluding that "prison officials had reasonably responded to known constitutional risks" before further relief could be ordered.

Samantha Kennedy, executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative, described the ruling as "a victory without a remedy."

A federal judge found that Louisiana prison officials knowingly exposed Farm Line workers to dangerous heat conditions, yet concluded that, under Fifth Circuit case law, reforms adopted during the litigation rendered permanent injunctive relief unnecessary. In the decision, U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson said his hands were tied by the precedent in Parker v. Hooper, a ruling that medical care at Angola was constitutionally deficient. Judge Jackson said that ruling required courts to consider whether prison officials had reasonably responded to known constitutional risks before ordering further relief. Advocates decried Judge Jackson's decision saying the labor system on the Farm Line "reinforces slavery as a way of life." In the complaint, which sought to end compulsory work on the Farm Line, attorneys said people are forced to perform manual agricultural labor for hours on end.

California SB 519

Editor's Comment: Earlier this year, in a Follow Up on correctional oversight, we noted that California's SB 519 created the In-Custody Death Review Division within the Board of State and Community Corrections to investigate jail deaths statewide. At the time, the board reportedly had yet to meet. The Shasta Scout article below suggests the law is nevertheless providing greater public access to records concerning deaths in the Shasta County Jail. Whether the In-Custody Death Review Division has since begun meeting is not addressed.

Since 2020, 24 of the men and women who walked into the facility did not walk out, having experienced some kind of fatal health crisis while behind bars. The vast majority of those who died were still waiting for their day in court. Consistent with national trends, the most common cause of death in the jail over the last six years has been suicide. Recent changes in state law have opened a narrow window into the jail’s inner workings in the wake of incarcerated deaths, providing access to investigative documents.

ICE

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked private contractors for at least 5,500 new detention beds across four regions of the country, in facilities that must start holding detainees within 30 days of a contract award. The agency gave the industry just one week to respond. The geographic requirements align precisely with four detention facilities currently operated by the GEO Group that ICE already relies on: the Aurora ICE Processing Center in Colorado, the Broward Transitional Center in Florida, the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Washington and the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania.

Delaney Hall, New Jersey

Members of Congress are denouncing conditions at an immigration detention center in New Jersey that has been a flashpoint in President Trump’s expanding deportation campaign, calling for an overhaul of the facility. Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, wrote a letter urging Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, to “take immediate action” to carry out a comprehensive review of conditions inside Delaney Hall. The detention center is run by Geo Group.

Throughout June and into July, devastated members of the American public have continued to pray and protest in front of New Jersey’s Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center operated by the for-profit corporation Geo Group. The sustained presence of the crowds, which include faith communities, concerned neighbors, friends and family of those detained, and advocates, has helped raise awareness about detainee deaths and the abominable conditions inside Delaney and other detention centers

Camp East Montana, Texas

A new report from Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union details the conditions in ICE's massive detention center known as Camp East Montana in El Paso. Detainees reported being beaten by guards, consistent denial of medical care and being prevented from contacting family members and lawyers. They also described overcrowding, unsanitary bathrooms and living quarters that regularly flooded with dirty water.

The contract for running Camp East Montana was given to Acquisition Logistics, which had no prior detention experience. Flouting state legal requirements, Acquisition Logistics failed to register to operate in Texas. The first detainees who were taken to Camp East Montana, in early August, arrived at an active construction site.

The financial mechanics behind Camp East Montana demonstrate systemic oversight failures within the federal contracting apparatus. .Federal auditors discovered that up to USD 11.5 million (KES 1.49 billion) of taxpayer funds were squandered in the first two weeks of August 2025. By March 2026, facing mounting pressure over structural deficits, federal authorities abruptly terminated the contract with Acquisition Logistics. The management responsibilities were subsequently transferred to Amentum Services via a no-bid, sole-source contract.

California City Detention Facility, California

Guillermo Medina Reyes, a detainee at the California City Detention Facility stated, “This is one of the worst situations people are going to face in their life,” said Medina Reyes, who placed blame for high commissary prices on CoreCivic, the Tennessee-based for-profit company that operates the Central Valley detention center. CoreCivic recently sold California City Detention Facility, along with Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but the company said it expects to continue to operate the detention centers under existing contracts.

BOP

Under federal law, people in prison must go through the facility’s own grievance process before they can attempt to sue. That gives prison staff a “chokehold over access to the courts,” said Colin Prince, a civil rights attorney and former federal defender. “

Incarcerated Women

To better understand how prison systems are approaching rehabilitation for women, the Council on Criminal Justice convened three virtual focus groups with correctional leaders. The conversations, involving leaders from 17 states, focused on behavioral health and wellness programming, reentry preparation, prison operations, and the barriers agencies face in delivering and evaluating supports for women in prison.

Air Conditioning

The Texas department of criminal justice (TDCJ) has been hit by a new wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Jason Wilson. The inmate was found dead in his solitary confinement cell at the Coffield unit in July 2024. The family’s civil complaint, lodged in a federal district court in Houston, accuses the state of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on the prisoner “that led to his death in a brutally hot, un-airconditioned cell”.

State Roundup

California

In California, survivors of solitary confinement who have spent years trying to seriously limit the practice are facing yet another setback as state prison officials unwind the minor reforms made in recent years. Those reforms, which had reduced the number of rule violations that could make someone eligible for isolation and increased out-of-cell time for people in solitary.

A yearslong investigation into conditions at Kern County's Lerdo Jail has resulted in sweeping reforms that reduced the jail's use of administrative segregation by more than 95%.

Connecticut

Several staff members at the Corrigan Correctional Center in Uncasville were attacked by an incarcerated individual according to the state's Dept. of Correction. Officials said the inmate verbally threatened a correctional health care staff member after a routine medical examination. Additional staff responded and the inmate then became combative, officials said.

Idaho

An Idaho prisoner who was out for the day on work release died over the weekend. The man was working with J.R. Simplot Co. as part of its partnership with IDOC. The company is cooperating with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is investigating. Specifically, that involves whether standards were followed for heat-related conditions.

Maryland

Nineteen correctional officers at Roxbury Correctional Institution south of Hagerstown have been administratively charged in the wake of an inmate being found dead at the prison on May 20, according to the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

A physician's note reviewed by The Baltimore Sun says Eastern Correctional Institution instructed doctors treating a Maryland inmate left in a coma after he was found unresponsive in his prison cell to provide "family updates in person at bedside, only, not over the phone." Hospital officials say no outside agency controls how physicians communicate with patients' families.

Ohio

A state review of the death of a woman in Cuyahoga County’s custody last year found that the care Jennifer Wade received did not meet state standards. An inspector with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction found jail staff did not immediately initiate CPR after Wade was found without a pulse on Feb. 23, 2025.

Oregon

More than four years after Multnomah County auditors called for sweeping reforms at the county jail, a new report found that officials failed to enact more than 38% of the auditor’s recommendations.

A 25-year-old patient, Kenneth Hass, who died at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem last year was subjected to years of indifferent, substandard care and long stretches of solitary confinement that were tantamount to torture, according to a new lawsuit filed by the man’s sister.

Texas

County residents put pressure on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court by using their allotted two minutes to discuss the 80 deaths in custody of shortly after being released from the county jail since 2017. Commissioner Matt Krause said he shares their concern. Krause, a Republican from Keller, announced at the commissioners’ June 9 meeting that the jail passed its inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards and commended the staff on their “technical perfection.”

A crowd of 60 people peacefully demanded change in the Tarrant County Jail in downtown Fort Worth on Tuesday morning. A speaker from the group read the names of 80 people who have died either in custody or shortly after being released since Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office in 2017.

Washington State

Columbia Legal Services has filed a class‑action lawsuit against the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) over what it calls an extreme and unlawful form of solitary confinement at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). The case, brought on behalf of two women identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, is a proposed class action, challenging the prison’s use of an X‑ray body scanner and a regime known as “dry cell” or “contraband watch.”

Wisconsin

Several dozen people rallied outside the Department of Corrections headquarters in Madison, calling for an end to prison overcrowding. More than 23,600 adults are locked up in the state’s prisons, and that number is approaching a record high.

Correctional Healthcare Providers

YesCare/Corizon/Tehum Care

YesCare, the former healthcare provider of Alabama prisons, had its $1 billion contract terminated in April. The Alabama Department of Corrections asked lawmakers to approve a $200,000 contract with a law firm to recoup funds from YesCare.

Wellpath

Wellpath, the private health contractor providing healthcare treatment at Santa Barbara County’s jails at annual cost of $26 million, reported a dramatic increase — 68 percent — in the number of inmates enrolled in Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) for addiction issues in both county jails in the past year.

PrimeCare/Armor

People who have been incarcerated inside the Blair County Prison (PA) say they encountered rodent droppings in food, poor access to medical care, and violence at the aging, overcrowded facility, a review of nearly 80 legal filings from the past year shows. Of the 51 lawsuits filed between July 2025 and mid-April of this year, 11 list PrimeCare as a co-defendant. County commissioners voted last week to award a three-year contract to Armor Health, which will take over when PrimeCare’s contract expires July 31. The warden, Mathew Hale, says that the search for a new provider was not connected to the lawsuits.