A federal judge presiding over a legal settlement on the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons has imposed $1.1 million in contempt of court fines against the state for failing to follow through on its promises to improve inmate care.

A federal judge who has criticized Arizona's persistent noncompliance with a settlement requiring improvements to health care for prisoners has ordered lawyers for the state and inmates to decide whether they want to throw out the 5-year-old deal and instead bring the case to trial.

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.

A special expert is recommending to a federal judge that she override a state law that requires the Department of Corrections to farm out health care for inmates to private companies.

Gov. Doug Ducey won't commit to ask the Legislature for all the dollars his departing head of the state prison system says are necessary to deal with the "critical public safety crisis.''

In his parting words before retirement, the director of Arizona’s prisons gave a dire warning to the governor about the crisis felt at prisons across the state.

Inmates have asked a federal judge to take over health care operations in all state-run prisons in Arizona and appoint an official to run medical and mental health services due to the state's repeated failure to improve the care.

Gov. Doug Ducey said Monday he wants to change the culture at the Department of Corrections, a culture that resulted in the agency chief cut off from what was happening by "yes'' men.

The head of the Department of Corrections remained "surprisingly uninformed'' about nonfunctioning locks at one of the state's largest prisons and the resultant security risks and assaults on guards, according to a new report issued today.

Charles Ryan, the embattled longtime director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, is retiring amid calls for his ouster.