27 December 2017 :
Arizona Ends Death-Row Solitary Confinement, Sees Reduced Prisoner Anxiety, Lowered Costs, and Increased Safety. On July 23, 2017 the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), announced it would settle a lawsuit over the conditions of confinement on the state's death row.
Now it is official: the state has ended the practice of automatically housing condemned prisoners in solitary confinement. Prisoners and prison officials alike are praising the changes. Carson McWilliams, Division Director for Offender Operations in the ADC, told the Arizona Republic that the new incarceration conditions provide an "atmosphere where prisoners can socialize," resulting in "reduced anxiety" that, in turn, "adds to safety control" of the prison. And, prison officials say, it has reduced institutional costs. Prior to the lawsuit, death row had meant 23-hour-per-day confinement in a concrete cell the size of a parking space, shuttered by a steel door with a perforated slot through which the prisoners would receive their meals, and with a bench bed and a sink attached to an uncovered toilet. Prisoners had no contact visits with families or lawyers, were handcuffed behind the back and subjected to body-cavity searches whenever they left their cells, and were restricted to showering or exercising three times a week. They also were denied prison jobs and educational opportunities.
About the solitary conditions, McWilliams remarked, "The more you're restricted inside a cell, the more likely you are to have depression, to have anxiety, to have other types of mental problems that could lead to some type of problem inside the system, whether its self harm, or suicide, or aggression towards a staff member or towards another inmate."
McWilliams said it now requires fewer officers to manage death row because officers no longer have to deliver individual meals or individually escort each of the 120 prisoners. Kevin Curran, who has been a prison warden at various facilities run by the ADC, said that he "feels safer among the death-row men than among the career criminals and gangsters in the general population."
Under the new conditions, prisoners are able to socialize with each other in activities such as playing basketball, volleyball, or board games, and can eat meals together.
One ADC corrections officer told the Arizona Republic that he was "apprehensive" at first about the changes, but the transition has been "very good" with only a "few minor incidents," which were "a lot less" than he expected.
