Hawai'i inmates who worked in the kitchen of an Arizona prison have been disciplined for allegedly smuggling methamphetamine and marijuana into the facility.

Shari Kimoto, administrator of the Mainland branch of the Hawai'i Department of Public Safety, said prison operator Corrections Corp. of America began investigating the alleged drug ring at the Florence Correctional Center after a number of inmates tested positive for drug use.

The kitchen supervisor and several truck drivers with a food service company that makes deliveries to the prison in Florence, Ariz., were fired in connection with the case, and one or two corrections officers also may have been involved, Kimoto said.

She said she expects to learn more when CCA officials file additional reports about the investigation.

Prisoners from Alaska and Washington state who worked in the kitchen also were disciplined, but no criminal charges have been filed yet, Kimoto said.

About 60 Hawai'i prisoners are confined at Florence, a small part of the 1,900 Hawai'i men and women held in Mainland facilities because there is no room for them in Island prisons.

The state pays about $40 million a year to house inmates at CCA facilities in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. There are plans to move all of them to Arizona in the year ahead, with most to be consolidated in the Saguaro Correctional Center now under construction in Eloy.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.