Medieval torture in US prisons.
Marcia Powell, 48, was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution at the Arizona State Prison Complex, Perryville when detention officers, who were transferring her to a detention unit, placed her in an uncovered outdoor holding cage at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
The temperature was around 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit).
She collapsed at about 2:40 p.m. and was taken to West Valley Hospital a half-hour later, but she died shortly after midnight.
Three corrections officers have been put on paid leave during an investigation.
Prisons director Charles Ryan told reporters at an afternoon news briefing that he's concerned that Powell was left in the cage despite the fact that there were corrections officers 20 yards away in a control room.
"It's our responsibility to ensure the care and custody of the inmate population," Ryan said. "The death of Marcia Powell is a tragedy and a failure. The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether there was negligence and to remedy our failures."
Ryan said he hopes to release a report into Powell's death by late next week. The Maricopa County Attorney's office will then decide whether to charge the corrections officers involved.
Powell arrived at the Perryville prison in August 2008. She was placed alone in the cage while being moved to an onsite detention unit after seeing a prison psychologist. Ryan said that a disturbance at the detention unit prompted Powell's placement in the holding cage. He would not elaborate on the nature of the disturbance.
Ryan said that officers gave Powell bottled water, as required under prison policy. Investigators will try to determine how much water she was given and whether she drank it. Under department policy, she should have been removed from the cage after two hours, but this did not happen.
"It is intended to be temporary," Ryan said. "It is not intended to be a place where they are held for an inordinate amount of time."
Powell had been in and out of state prisons and had a long history of mental illness, Ryan said. He would not say whether she was on medication.
Ryan would not release the names of the officers placed on paid leave.
He said that he told all state prison wardens to monitor the temperatures at outdoor holding "cells" while they are housing inmates.
Corrections officials were unable to locate family members. Ryan said prison records show that Powell may have had two children whom she placed in foster care years ago.
Powell is the 79th person to die in state prisons since July 2008, according to Ryan. He said most of the deaths were from natural causes, but there were three suicides and one murder.
There are two deaths still being investigated, including Powell's and that of an inmate who was found dead in his bed at a Buckeye prison last month, Ryan said.
Donna Leone Hamm, executive director of Tempe-based Middle Ground Prison Reform Inc., called the outdoor cell "a cage for human beings" and said Powell's case represents a failure of the mental health system.
"There are hundreds of mentally ill people who have been shuffled out of the mental health system and into prisons," Hamm said. "But this particular situation is unconscionable."
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