

They describe multiple detention units well beyond design capacity, including at times when three people are forced together in a cell designed for two, and how this forecloses any of the physical distancing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other experts indicate are necessary. Since that time, we have repeatedly notified ADC of our concerns about the use of punitive solitary confinement and detention units at multiple prisons for medical isolation and quarantine purposes for people with COVID-19 symptoms or confirmed positive. In her order, she wrote that “Defendants’ response gives the impression that they are willfully blind to the Stipulation’s raison d’etre-which is to provide for prisoners’ health care through diagnostic testing and treatment.” She also identified that ADC’s refusal to provide this information to the attorneys for incarcerated people could reflect “Defendants’ failure to accept what may be a grave threat facing the prisoner population.” On April 2, 2020, Judge Silver issued an order instructing ADC to provide the attorneys for incarcerated people the names of every person tested for COVID-19, as well as the results. On March 27, 2020, after ADC publicly announced that multiple incarcerated people had been tested for COVID-19, but they refused to provide their names to class counsel, we filed a statement to the federal court asking Judge Silver to order ADC to provide us with the names of our clients who are suspected to have COVID-19. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2020, Judge Silver denied the rest of the emergency motion for relief.
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After we filed the motion, ADC announced that they would provide soap free of charge to incarcerated people, no longer charge $4 co-pays to people seeking medical care who reported flu-like or COVID symptoms, and permit custody and health care staff to bring hand sanitizer into the prisons. The emergency motion also requested that any COVID-19 plan include steps to reduce the density of the prison population, and that the federal court order the state to suspend all policies that require incarcerated people to pay for soap and hygiene supplies, co-pays for all requests for medical care, and that prohibit the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers in the prisons. Silver to order ADC to consult with a correctional health care expert to develop a plan to prevent, manage, and treat any COVID-19 outbreaks in the state’s ten prisons. Información por los presos de Arizona sobre la enfermedad del coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) (13 de octubre, 2020)įor information provided by ADC regarding testing and rates of infection, please see the department’s COVID-19 dashboard.įirst, on March 16, 2020, we filed an emergency motion asking District Judge Roslyn O.English large print version for people with vision impairments, October 13, 2020.English version, last updated October 13, 2020.Prison Law Office fact sheets for incarcerated people about COVID-19:

At the end of the page are select court filings, including briefs and declarations, and correspondence with Arizona Department of Corrections (“ADC”) officials. The Court’s order found that “Defendants have in the past six years proffered erroneous and unreliable excuses for non-performance, asserted baseless legal arguments, and in essence resisted complying with the obligations they contractually knowingly and voluntarily assumed.”īelow is a summary of our COVID-19 related case activity earlier in the pandemic. On July 16, 2021, the Court reopened the case and ordered a trial, to start no later than November 1, 2021.

The Prison Law Office, and our co-counsel ACLU National Prison Project, ACLU of Arizona, and Arizona Center for Disability Law are actively working to enforce the rights of people in Arizona prisons in our case of Parsons v.
