GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Ryan Thornell, the Director of Arizona's Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry said he's not been out to the Perryville prison this week after the department confirmed issues with air conditioners and swamp coolers over the weekend.
"It’s extreme heat across the Valley to begin with," he said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. "Our complexes are no different than the rest of the community that’s experiencing an unprecedented heatwave."
Thornell's staff said he could only meet for 15 minutes to answer questions from the 12News I-Team before going to another appointment.
The department said it's done things like move inmates to the visitation area to cool off or offer extra showers to help mitigate the heat, but incarcerated women and their relatives and loved ones are telling 12News they're worried conditions are unsafe and unbearable.
"It’s understandable that parts fail and maintenance people have to come out and repair things, just like it happens at houses, just like it happens in communities," Thornell said. "We’ve had little blips during this week where things might happen for an hour, we reset the system, bring it back online. So I wouldn’t say that our systems have to be wholesale replaced or that they’re subpar when you’re responding to 118, 120 degree temperatures outside."
Many women reported to 12News that their cells temped at more than 100-degrees, which Thornell said he's not heard about. Women at the prison have shared these concerns with 12News Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Department said the broken swamp coolers and air conditioners were fixed over the weekend.
When cooling systems were down over the weekend, an ADCRR spokesperson said some cells temped as high as 98-degrees.
"I had the Deputy Warden of Operations in cells this morning and again this afternoon, actually feeling the temperatures of the cells and they’re in the mid-80s" Thornell stated. "I have not had a report of any cell hitting the hundreds or feeling like the hundreds and I had staff in there today."
Thornell said it's not policy to do temperature checks in front of vents after some women reported to 12News that that was happening to make it appear that things were cooler. The I-Team requested the temperature logs for the first three weeks of July and are waiting on that request.
When asked how the public can know whether the temperature checks are accurate, Thornell said he trusts his staff and the quality assurance checks that are done.
"People can question what happens all the time," he said. "That’s their right. But our staff - we’re professionals. Our staff care about their jobs and our staff care about the wellness of the population. And to say what they’re doing isn’t accurate or not what they’re supposed to be, that’s just not something I would entertain."
As for getting air conditioners for the units that only have the swamp coolers, which house nearly 1,300 people, Thornell said it's approved in the budget for the next fiscal year.
"Talking about having them installed by 2024 is a relatively normal timeline for the contractor issues, supply chain issues, processes, physical plant challenges," he explained. "We know the new system is not going to be here tomorrow. So it's our responsibility to make sure that we put in the staff time, we put in the staff resources, even if it's a burden on the department to keep them safe, keep them healthy."
Corene Kendrick, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Prison Project, said changes need to be happening a lot sooner.
"The state needs to move much more quickly in installing AC in the prisons," she said in an interview earlier this week. "AC is not a luxury. AC is a lifesaver."
Kendrick is one of the attorneys working on an ongoing years-long lawsuit against the Arizona's Department of Corrections over inmate healthcare concerns, before Thornell became the director.
Her concern now is that inmates could face heat injuries under current conditions at Perryville, where she says she's visited in the summer time.
"They're basically giant metal sheds," she said, referring to some of the cells. "The swamp coolers do not provide the cooling that you need."
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