Whistleblowers: Arizona's inmate management software has been unable to interpret sentencing laws since 2019, leaving hundreds eligible for release incarcerated
Hundreds of Arizona inmates who by law should have been released are being held past their eligibility date, and the state corrections agency faces immediate pressure to identify every affected sentence and recalculate them manually.
Second-order effects
Other states running similar inmate-management platforms face calls to audit whether their own systems correctly apply amended or layered sentencing laws — the same scrutiny Washington faced once its early-release glitch surfaced.
Third-order effects
With proprietary recidivism and sentencing tools already shaping court decisions under thin oversight, a pattern of unverified corrections code points toward statutory audit and disclosure requirements for government justice software.
The trend: Criminal-justice agencies are discovering that decades-old, lightly audited sentencing and tracking software fails silently in both directions — wrongful release and wrongful continued incarceration — pushing states toward mandatory verification regimes.
EXCLUSIVE: Whistleblowers tell @kjzzphoenix a software bug is keeping hundreds of inmates in Arizona prisons beyond their release dates - Sources say Department of Corrections leadership has known about the problem since 2019 https://kjzz.org/...
If I were practicing law, and licensed in Arizona, I would look at the false imprisonment tort...if these prisoners should be released and are wrongfully held, that is a tort of false imprisonment https://twitter.com/...
Imagine being caged like an animal, facing daily violence, reaching the end of your prison sentence... and never being released That's what's happening in Arizona, and Corrections officials have known and done nothing since 2019 https://kjzz.org/... #AbolishPrisons
Equal justice is what we need to be working towards. Instead, we watch state government incompetence and indifference deprive the liberty of Arizonans. Thank you to the civil servants who care enough about duty to bring this to light. We must do better. https://twitter.com/...
“... hundreds of incarcerated people who should be eligible for release are being held in prison because the inmate management software cannot interpret current sentencing laws.” “Land of the Free” https://twitter.com/...
Local Arizona news outlet @kjzzphoenix discovered a software “bug” was keeping prisoners locked up after their release date. In response, the Arizona Department of Corrections blocked its employees' access to the news outlet's website. https://gizmodo.com/...
“We knew from day one [2019] this wasn't going to work,” a source in the Department of Corrections told KJZZ. “When they approved that bill, we looked at it and said ‘Oh, shit.’” this is disgusting https://twitter.com/...
As of 2019, the Department had spent more than $24 million contracting with IT company Business & Decision, North America to build and maintain the software program, known as ACIS, that is used to manage the inmate population in state prisons.
According to Arizona Department of Corrections whistleblowers, hundreds of incarcerated people who should be eligible for release are being held in prison because the inmate management software cannot interpret current sentencing laws.