(The Center Square) – Arizona legislators want accountability and transparency when it comes to prison homicides and safety issues.
At least nine inmates have been killed in 2025. Meanwhile, assaults on both staff and inmates are rising.
State Sen. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, said this is a matter of safety for inmates and employees, even taxpayers.
“Staff level assaults have almost doubled, and from year to year, from 2023 to 2024 to 2025,” Payne told The Center Square. “Assaults on inmates has more than doubled, almost tripled.”
Payne and state Rep. Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, shared their concerns Tuesday at a Joint Ad Hoc Study Committee on Correctional Practices and Facility Safety hearing. Payne and Nguyen are co-chairs of the committee.
Also at the hearing was Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry Director Ryan Thornell. Members of the committee pressed Thornell on safety matters, as well as policies they say allowed high-risk offenders to be reassigned to less restrictive custody levels. Among the prisoners mentioned was inmate Ricky Wassenaar. He is accused of three murders in April.
Nguyen believes Arizonans deserve better.
“What we heard shows a pattern of poor decisions, a lack of accountability, and troubling gaps in transparency at the top,” said Nguyen in a press release. “Moving violent offenders into less secure settings has put staff and inmates in danger, and the results are tragic.”
According to Payne, there were approximately 1,300 prisoners in maximum custody when Thornell took over. Seven months later, Payne put that number at 257.
“That was an 81% drop,” Payne told The Center Square. “How do you drop that many people so quickly, so rapidly, and it not affect the security within the prison?”
Payne also told The Center Square that members of the committee have been trying since early June to get monthly reports on what has been happening.
“A lot of them are Excel reports,” said Payne. “They should be able to just hand them over.”
For now, the committee will continue reviewing inmate classification practices while also taking a look at the staffing levels for security personnel and the decision-making of ADCRR officials.
A report on those findings could be released later this year.
