An Arizona Department of Corrections officer was shot and killed in what Buckeye police believe was a carjacking.

FLORENCE — Department of Corrections officials are investigating the death of an inmate housed at the Arizona State Prison in Florence.

Rampant sexual harassment among corrections department employees is among many problems Arizona’s first female prisons chief is confronting.

The Arizona Department of Corrections is investigating an inmate death at the Lewis prison west of Phoenix.

BUCKEYE — Eleven inmates at an Arizona prison were injured after a fight broke out at a complex west of Phoenix Saturday afternoon, a state Department of Corrections spokesman said.

State lawmakers quickly objected Wednesday to plans by Gov. Janet Napolitano to ease a prison overcrowding crisis by spending $470 million for new cells over the next five years.

A prison warden is among a dozen Arizona corrections officials who have been fired, forced to resign, suspended or reprimanded in connection with the death of a non-violent inmate killed after he was put in a cell with a convicted murderer serving a life sentence.

SAN FRANCISCO - The man convicted of stalking and killing actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 was stabbed repeatedly by another inmate in the prison where he is serving a life sentence, corrections officials said.

A prisoner with no record of violence was beaten and stabbed to death after Arizona Department of Corrections officials placed him in a cell with a killer serving a life sentence. William Harris, 45, who was serving 3 1/2 years at the state prison in Florence, was stabbed three times, hit repeatedly on the head and choked, according to a Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s report.

Saying changes are needed, Gov. Janet Napolitano on Friday named the first woman ever to run the 33,000-inmate state prison system.

May 17, 2004

Women drug addicts who forge and steal are the fastest growing segment of Arizona’s prison population, raising concerns about the impact to their children and the ultimate cost to taxpayers.

Tasers are not catching on in jails and prisons even as some local police agencies make the Scottsdale-made stun gun their main weapon against unruly crime suspects.

TUCSON — Arizona allocated a higher percentage of spending for corrections in fiscal 2008 than all but three other states, according to a study released Monday.

A breakdown of the events in the prison hostage situation at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis:

BUCKEYE - One of two correctional officers held hostage by two inmates for nearly a week climbed down from a prison guard tower to safety Saturday.

A prison that was never built. Bed space arranged too late. A new prison unit that stayed empty without staff.

With Arizona’s prisons bursting at the seams, the state nixed several offers last week to build more space to house thousands of inmates.

Overcrowding could force Arizona's prisons to shut their doors to new inmates this summer, corrections authorities said Thursday.

Authorities say an Arizona State Prison Complex inmate has died of an apparent homicide.

Arizona needs more prisons to keep up with its growing inmate population, which already exceeds the intended capacity by an estimated 4,500 bodies. But who will build them?

May 19, 2004