More than a dozen prisoners at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy spend their days working with former racing greyhounds to understand these commands.

Arizona’s justice system is at a breaking point. In the last 20 years, our prison population has grown seven times faster than our general population, putting us in the unenviable position of having the fifth highest imprisonment rate in the country. Our prisons now cost taxpayers $1 billion a year.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on the Arizona Department of Corrections this week to rescind the ban on "Chokehold: Policing Black Men." The book by Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, examines law enforcement and mass incarceration through its treatment of African American men.

With potential sanctions for his agency’s failure to meet court-ordered prison health care standards looming, Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan laid the blame largely at the feet of private contractor Corizon Correctional Healthcare.

An ex-prisoner has come forward with allegations that a former Arizona Department of Corrections detention officer, Kenneth Couture, made inappropriate sexual advances while she was incarcerated and had sex with her while she was still under the agency’s supervision after her release from prison.

Gov. Doug Ducey wants to expand employment centers for soon-to-be-released prisoners and give them identification cards before they leave state custody.

The governor also said the state will restore cuts made during the Great Recession to formula funding for K-12 schools, but details on how much money and where it will come from won’t be known until the governor releases his budget on Friday.

The weekend death of a Guatemalan woman who became ill at a detention center in Arizona with the most in-custody immigrant deaths in the U.S. is another example of inadequate care and poor practices at the privately run site, advocates for immigrants said this week.

Attorneys who brought a class-action lawsuit over the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons said Friday that the state is trying to skirt a requirement in a settlement that mental health professionals see inmates who have recently been taken off psychotropic medications.

The Department of Corrections is returning to court on claims the agency is shirking its obligation under a year-old lawsuit settlement to improve health care for prisoners.