Speaker Jake Flake, R-Dist. 5, has urged House members to sign letters of support that are being written to the two corrections officers and families involved in the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis hostage standoff.

“They [the letters] will be a great comfort to the families and, hopefully, to the female hostage when she is finally released,” Mr. Flake said Jan. 28.

Jake Logan, an Arizona House spokesman, said the letter would have generic greetings and be turned over to DOC to give to the families.

A male corrections officer, who had been held hostage, was released Jan. 24.

In another show of support, workers from other prisons were donning yellow ribbons and volunteering to work shifts at the Lewis complex, an Arizona Department of Corrections spokesperson said.

Since Jan. 18, two inmates have been holed up in a watchtower at the Morey unit of the prison complex. They took the tower’s two corrections officers hostage, and though they released one, the other was still being held on Jan. 29.

At a Jan. 27 briefing, prison officials said there was no new information on the negotiations to free the hostage.

Because of the standoff, the prison remains in lockdown, meaning the 4,400 inmates at the medium- to high-security facility are being allowed little movement outside their cells.

The lockdown has shifted much of the workload normally carried by inmates to staff members, said Cam Hunter, the department spokeswoman.

“There is a huge workforce that hasn’t been working,” she said.

Inmates usually have work duties ranging from laundry to cleaning to kitchen work. The two inmates in the tower were kitchen workers.

To help alleviate the stress on staff at the complex, officers from other prisons have volunteered to take over shifts and to make meals for the families of Lewis employees, Ms. Hunter said.

Negotiators spoke briefly with the corrections officer being held in the tower on Jan. 28.

“She’ll walk out under her own power from the ground floor of the tower,” Ms. Hunter told reporters later. “I fully expect that to happen. I think it’s just a matter of time. Our negotiators are driving hard, and that is under the veil of patience, to obtain her release.’

Also on Jan. 28, officials confirmed that the male correctional officer, who had been released, had gone home from the hospital.

The DOC has declined to identify the corrections officers or inmates, or to say what the inmates are demanding. —

The Associated Press contributed to this story.