III: Arizona prison staff faced division and frustration surrounding COVID-19 failures

In Arizona Department of Corrections communications between 2020 and early 2022, demoralized prison staff and frustrated administrators reported dozens of COVID failures and lax conduct among prison workers and administrators, desperate to put pressure on top ADOC officials while also fearing retaliation. According to emails obtained by CREW, then-Arizona prisons Director David Shinn and his deputy directors were made aware of allegations that their workers failed to follow basic masking procedures time and time again, yet the same problems persisted into 2022.

On April 11, 2020, a prison worker flagged to Shinn and others that two prisoners had been transferred between facilities while potentially COVID-positive and not wearing masks, and by officers who only had gloves on. “This department has to do better at protecting staff,” they wrote. “We feel like we are being failed by our leadership.”

Days later, another staff member emailed Shinn and eight others that staff and inmates were exposed to an officer who returned to work six days after being exposed without being given a COVID test. The staff member asked why the department was putting the workers and workers’ loved ones at risk. “I just truly hope we don’t lose a staff member to this virus because the department is not doing everything it can to prevent this spread,” they wrote. “It really feels like the department is gambling with our lives with the hopes that we don’t bring it in. If one of our staff does die I know my conscience will be clear because I am doing everything I can to help minimize this spread.”

On April 17, 2020, Carlos Garcia, executive director of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association, emailed 13 individuals and local advocacy group Middle Ground Prison Reform that both the staff and inmate population were suffering mentally and physically as the department was “playing chicken” with the virus. Upon interviewing staff infected with COVID, Garcia reported that they begin testing everyone, no matter the cost, beginning with those in the region most affected at the moment.

Ten days later, Garcia again emailed over two dozen prison officials (this time cc’ing 12 News KPNX) with thorough criticism about the staff’s failures amid the outbreak. Garcia wrote that Warden Regina Dorsey lied about having investigated after a positive test result from a kitchen officer at the Pedro unit, and that the spiraling consequences led to “exposures of an epic proportion on Perryville Complex.” The Perryville prison was also where a prisoner alleged inmates were being given “fake” health checks and do-not-resuscitate status against their will.

Garcia reiterated a list of rules in his email, including, “All staff should be wearing a N95 mask regardless of what CDC, God, Buddha, Krishna or whoever else has a say about it, and ditch the boxer shorts mask” and “Start doing your jobs and answer your emails. We are tax paying citizens and registered voters and being ignored by politicians like yourselves is insulting, embarrassing and unbecoming of your positions.”

Garcia also told the officials to “Stop hiding the numbers… and get some ethics while you’re at it, or relinquish your positions to someone with a vested interest in the people of Arizona.” He called for Warden Dorsey’s termination and for a response from Shinn and then-Gov. Doug Ducey, both of which he claimed have been “literally ignoring” the prison workers. He promised that otherwise, he would gather citizens to protest in front of the Arizona State Capitol.

Masking by staff was still considered optional and was in fact so unconventional that in May 2020, someone on staff emailed Shinn expressing agreement with him that “if all the staff came in wearing masks it could possibly cause a riot.” (But when inmates were asked how they would feel if all the staff wore masks and did not provide them to the inmates, every inmate said that they would be “happy and not scared.”) In June, another presumed staff member emailed Shinn and two others about the disciplinary action against staff members who were not wearing masks: “With no DI/DO and nothing in policy on wearing masks how is it that any staff can receive discipline for not wearing one or taking it off.”

In June 2020, a prison employee emailed Shinn and deputy directors Joe Profiri and Frank Strada—previously director of operations at the GEO Group—and others, describing that their unit had no COVID cases until that day, when three people who were positive for COVID were moved to their unit instead of the empty unit behind it. He wrote, “Staff is upset. The inmates are upset. We feel like sacrificial lambs over here…. I feel betrayed.”

Emails between unit administrators also showed that staff were given information on testing sites and immediately sent home on sick leave after being exposed to a COVID-positive family member—these protocols may not have been consistently followed when staff were exposed to COVID-positive inmates. By July 15, 2020, at least 371 staffers and 569 prisoners were reported to have tested positive across Arizona’s 16 prisons.

That month, a radio reporter named Jimmy Jenkins emailed the Department of Corrections asking about reports that a deceased prisoner did not receive medical attention until 45 minutes after she called for help. After the state announced that inmates were making masks for themselves and the correctional officers, Jenkins alleged on Twitter that the same inmates had been threatened with disciplinary action when they were using t-shirts to mask. Profiri sent a screenshot of this to other officials writing, “Remember when I said this would come back? It’s back… It would be prudent to determine if any inmates were disciplined before the media informs you.”

In October, 2020, Strada received documents from an Arizona Correctional Industries manager describing plans to begin N95 mask production inside the Eyman prison, including hiring inmates and staff to run the operation. The masks would be both used by inmates and bought by state and local markets. A few days later, Shinn sent Strada to other officials an email about barrier production, reminding the others of the “many COVID mitigation product manufacturing and sales opportunities we need to engage in.” It is unclear from the documents whether plans for any production of PPE products aside from masks at Shinn’s prisons were actualized.

Also in October, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s office reached out to Shinn asking about testing and quarantining transferred inmates. Shinn forwarded the email to Profiri and others, writing, “The irony of this concern is unbelievable given the absence of the same standard which we have begged all involved for since February 2020 for testing prior to transfer to our custody.” According to a reply from Strada, inmates were not currently being tested prior to pick up, but symptomatic or COVID-positive inmates would have hearings rescheduled. 

On December 10 and 11, 2020, Strada handled complaints from a staff member that listed concerns in a facility called Dakota, including the poor soap availability, cleaning failures and staff who did not wear masks or follow other recommended protocols. The worker explained that it was difficult to encourage higher staff to wear masks and even close doors leading to isolated cells where COVID-positive prisoners lived, and described how a 100-inmate facility was not given soap for weeks—and that when this was raised to leadership, only 20 bars were provided. The email said, “Concerned staff refuse to voice their concern in fear of retaliation… I do not want to be retaliated against for bringing up issues. I cannot stress enough how uncomfortable it is to write this email.”

In December 2021, then-ADOC Assistant Director of Operations Lance Hetmer forwarded an email listing over a dozen COVID protection failures to the Assistant Director of Medical Services Larry Gann and Strada, writing: “Larry this is ridiculous two inmates present with COVID symptoms are tested and sent back to their dorms. No quarantine no notification nothing. Now we have what appears to be a serious problem.” 

Middle Ground Prison Reform forwarded an email to Shinn in January 2022 that claimed there were false numbers of positive cases being reported and workers who refused to follow cleaning procedures. “[The doctor] states on record there’s around 60 positive covid cases here and not recorded due to not being tested[.] it is well over 100. There’s nothing being done about this… there’s no protocol nor safety measures for inmates yet [sic] alone the officers. It is obvious the officers spread covid and continue to do so every minute.” The complaint alleged that officers were using the same handcuffs for COVID-positive and -negative inmates without any disinfectant or sanitization in between, and how other officers were still not wearing masks. A warden named James Kimble replied with a “suggested response” alleging that the complex was housing inmates who tested positive for COVID with other inmates who tested positive.

A prison worker in the Browning unit who was allegedly COVID-positive was also described in the documents to have told an inmate that he had no symptoms and also a “special blood type” that prevented him from spreading the virus.

Shinn and officials also faced what appear to be legal warnings in their handling of the pandemic. On January 18, 2022 an Arizona lawyer named Lisa Simpson forwarded to Shinn a “disturbing” message likely from an inmate’s mother, stressing an “emergency situation” in which the prison refused to test for COVID, did not have medication of any kind available while a redacted inmate is in extreme pain and was barred from seeing an oral surgeon for extractions due to the lockdown. “As with past situations,” the lawyer said, “I sincerely hope we can reach an amenable resolution to this matter.” In an email from January 25, 2022, a redacted sender informed Shinn that the Attorney General and counsel had been contacted regarding how “hundreds of actually sick inmates with symptoms, and who refused testing, have not been segregated.”

Earlier this year, Joe Profiri was fired from his position as Arkansas Corrections Secretary after having been suspended and banned from the Arkansas Department of Corrections administrative building for promising to override the Arkansas Board of Corrections’s objections against prison expansion plans.

According to the documents, ADOC’s contracted private prison company staff also allegedly withheld masks and laundry access from prisoners, and ignored rules for quarantining and social distancing following the outbreak of COVID-19—exacerbating existing issues raised by both the inmates and prison workers who worried for their lives.

Summer Roberts contributed to this report.

Aerial photo by Prison Insight via a Creative Commons license.