Photos and court documents filed by the plaintiffs describe the conditions experts said they witnessed during tours of the detention facilities or saw in surveillance video. (Read the court documents online with this story.)

Eldon Vail, a retired corrections administrator with 35 years of experience working in adult and juvenile facilities, said the conditions at the detention centers would be “unthinkable” in any other jurisdiction.

The Tucson station was so cramped, some detainees lay down on concrete floors beneath toilet stalls. Others were “crammed so tightly, they look like sardines in a can,” he wrote.

Some toilets didn’t flush, while many were “leaking and stained with built up grime from overuse” and “diapers, toilet paper and other trash were strewn around the bathroom area,” Vail wrote.

During his inspection of the Casa Grande station, there were only three sleeping mats in the entire facility, he wrote. At other stations, detainees slept on the concrete floor “while, at the exact same moment in time in the same station, mats go unused in other unoccupied or less occupied cells.”