Buckeye’s Lewis state prison seeing heightened death rates

The number of inmates who have died at the state's Lewis prison complex in Buckeye is approaching an annual benchmark just four months into the year, according to data from the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Located on State Route 85, Lewis is an Arizona State Prison Complex housing some 4,400 inmates. Since the year began, 14 of them have lost their lives there.

The U.S. Department of Justice in 2019 published findings illustrating a state prison standard annual death rate of 3.3 per 1,000 state prisoners. That means a prison with 4,400 inmates should expect to see 14 deaths in an entire year on average.

Lewis’s annual death rate sits at about 9.5 per 1,000 for 2025 when projected over 12 months. Lewis would finish the year with 42 deaths, should it maintain that rate.

Lewis has seen a death rate of 3.18 per 1,000 in just four months. InBuckeye counted 17 deaths at Lewis last year, using the same data source.

This year, in April, three Lewis inmates died in five days.

InBuckeye has contacted the Arizona DOC for data on the number of deaths that have been categorized as murders, but no comment was furnished by press time. When the DOJ published its research in 2019, the 143 homicides in state prisons marked the highest number ever recorded in 19 years of recordkeeping.