Three officials with the Arizona correctional system have been suspended pending an investigation into the death of a female inmate. Marcia Powell, age 48, was serving 27 months at the Perryville complex at the time of her death. Temperatures reached 107.5 degrees Tuesday in Goodyear, where Marcia Powell collapsed after spending nearly four hours in the sun .... .... Powell, who had a history of mental illness, was scheduled to be transferred to a psychiatric unit Tuesday for observation. At 11 a.m., while she waited to be transferred, she was placed in an outdoor, uncovered chain-link holding cell. The cell was in plain view of a staffed control room about 20 yards away. Although prisoners are given bottled water, department guidelines call for prisoners to be confined outdoors for no more than two hours. Powell had been in the cell for almost twice that long when, at 2:40 p.m., she collapsed. A half-hour later, Powell was taken to West Valley Hospital. She was taken off life support at 11:15 p.m. and was pronounced dead at 12:42 a.m. Wednesday. It was unclear Wednesday whether corrections staffers were actively monitoring Powell during her confinement. Ryan said the use of the outdoor holding cells is appropriate as long as prisoners are not kept in them for extended periods of time. (Newton) I guess that's one way of controlling the prison population. Seventy-nine inmates have died in the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections in the last year. 70 were determined to be of natural causes; there were also three homicides, three suicides, a drug overdose, and two unresolved cases. ____________________ Notes: Newton, Casey. "Prison officials suspended in inmate death". Arizona Republic. May 21, 2009. AZcentral.com. Accessed May 21, 2009. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/05/21/20090521prisondeath0521.html
