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.

Now that the federal government plans to resume capital punishment, Arizona should as well, according to Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

The state of Arizona wants a judge to hold off on her threat to order $1.6 million in additional contempt-of-court fines against the state for failing to adequately follow through on its promises to improve health care for its 33,000 prisoners.

The Arizona Department of Corrections has asked an appeals court to throw out a contempt-of-court ruling against its director and a $1.4 million fine against the state for failing to adequately improve health care for the 33,000 inmates in state-run prisons.

The union representing Arizona prison guards joined an inmate rights group Tuesday to demand that the state immediately fix security problems that they say led to an inmate's death and the severe beating of two guards.

The Arizona Department of Corrections has picked a new company to provide health care at its 10 state-run prisons.

A judge presiding in a legal settlement over the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons has raised the possibility of throwing out the four-year agreement and resuming litigation over inmate care because of the state's pervasive noncompliance with the deal.

Lawyers who filed a lawsuit challenging the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons are seeking $1.6 million in additional legal fees and other costs in enforcing a 2014 settlement that they say the state has repeatedly resisted.

Arizona Corrections Director Charles Ryan is appealing a ruling that found him in civil contempt of court and fined the state $1.4 million for failing to adequately improve health care for inmates.