Gov. Doug Ducey this week extended a prison re-entry and rehabilitation program that was slated to go offline due to a lapse in legislative authorization on July 1, giving some relief to criminal justice advocates who worried that a door ...

The Arizona Public Health Association is urging the state’s health director to do more to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the prisons as studies and public health officials predict a nearly 100% infection rate.

This is all frustrating for Rep. Walt Blackman,R-Snowflake, one of many Arizona lawmakers who over the years have sought to amend the state’s sentencing laws -- some of the strictest in the country -- and improve prison conditions, mostly to no avail.

Since conservatives got on board with revamping Arizona’s sentencing laws, bills to do that no longer lay unheard, not considered. And as the movement has taken hold over the past few years, a host of groups and people have made their presence known at the Legislature. Following are some of them.

Prisoners serving time for non-violent crimes would get one day off their sentences for every day served under a ballot measure filed by a newly formed group Friday.

The new head of the state Department of Corrections is a career employee of the federal Bureau of Prisons where last year he instituted a policy that restricted access to books by inmates.

The Arizona Criminal Justice Commission started work this week on developing a definitive set of data lawmakers can refer to while drafting changes to criminal justice policy, but advocates for reform fear the commission will do nothing more than slap a state logo on a faulty report long pushed by prosecutors.

Lawmakers and advocates who’ve sought for years to overhaul Arizona’s criminal justice system are cautiously optimistic that longtime Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s ascension to the state Supreme Court will clear the way for substantive change next legislative session.

More than a dozen liberal organizations and Democratic lawmakers are asking Bill Montgomery to establish an exclusion list of law enforcement officers with a history of dishonesty, bias, or violence.

In a recent guest opinion, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery peddles a grab bag of outdated and weak measures – some over 40 years old – to claim that Arizona leads in criminal justice reform. If only.