II: Records reveal allegations of Arizona prisoners suffering rampant mistreatment and neglect during COVID

In emailsand letters sent to Arizona Department of Corrections officials via outside advocacy organizations between 2020 and early 2022, inmates and family members reported countless COVID failures and abuses against the state's prisoners. Local organizations Middle Ground Prison Reform and Valley Interfaith Project passed on alarming complaints and concerns from the inmates and their family members, pleading then-Arizona prisons Director David Shinn with increasing urgency to alleviate these issues.

In June 2020, Middle Ground Prison Reform emailed a letter to Shinn about the urgent need for masks, requesting that all prisoners be allowed to wear masks and to make at least two per person available, even offering to begin a campaign to secure donated masks to save taxpayer dollars. As of July 2020, it appears in the documents that PPE cost the corrections complex 50 cents per inmate, but the documents make clear that mask availability among the prison population was sparse. By July 15, 2020, at least 569 prisoners at 13 of Arizona's 16 prison complexes had tested positivefor COVID-19.

The following month, Valley Interfaith Project told Shinn to take more "aggressive action" by implementing protocols to protect inmates and their families, including partnering with the Arizona Department of Health Services to provide supportive isolation for prisoners who were being released while positive for COVID, or who were returning to homes with vulnerable family members.

In January 2021, Director of the Middle Ground Prison Reform Donna Hamm forwarded an email to Shinn and other officials detailing how conditions were deteriorating at the Kingman facilities. Inmates were fed spoiled milk and breakfast items with dates of expiry that passed over a year ago. Prisoners with allergies or dietary restrictions were told that special meals were not available, and had to eat the standard meals or forgo meals altogether. The day prior, Hamm sent Shinn and other officials a complaint about the circumstances at the Huachuca GEO Group facility in Kingman, where there was no attempt to cook or follow any menu at the facility, so the inmates often ate uncooked food for breakfast and dinner at their bunks. The inmate called it, "even beyond GEO's normal low everyday standards."