Idaho Prison Blog

As predicted, IDOC administrators are stressing over photos of males with large breasts being sent to prisoners - calling the legal and perfectly appropriate efforts of prisoners to have policy changed a "game" - and are not only confiscating these photos when they arrive, staff are also inordinately (and without justification) delaying the release of the email indisputedly appropriate and authorized text to which they are attached. Staff constantly complain they don't have the time or staff to review all the emails, photos or videos received via JPay within the time constraints set forth in IDOC SOP 503.02.01.001 (see the post WASTING TIME AND PLAYING GAMES - THE ADMINISTRATOR'S DEFENSE on this page), yet, were staff not so consumed with identifying what boob is actually a boob, how much boob is too much boob and now - what is a male and what is a female boob - investigations and mailroom staff would have up to 30% more time (according to estimates by some staff) to ...

It must be written in some outdated IDOC training manual that when staff cannot intelligently counter a valid point or question raised by a prisoner concerning policy or SOP, employees must discount the argument made as a waste of (staff) time and resources, though the perennial favorite of administrators is to label the difference of opinion as the "playing of games" by an inmate with too much time on his/her hands. Prisoner Dale Shackelford has on several instances called upon the ISCC Investigations Department (security) to follow the minimum requirements of SOP for providing timely Notice whenever an electronic communication (ECM), be it an email, videogram or photo attachment is confiscated by staff. Shackelford maintains that IDOC SOP 503.02.01.001 requires staff, within 24 hours to review all incoming ECMs [FN1] and either approve and send the ECM to the intended recipient [FN2] or complete and deliver a Contraband Denial form and send the offending ECMs to security fo...

On occasion an Idaho lawmaker begs the question, "Why does a prisoner of the state remain incarcerated past his eligible parole date?" Reasons run the gamut. More often than not Idaho Department of Correction staff can cite myriad disciplinary problems -- in other words, breaking the rules -- for holding onto a prisoner longer. By law a convict may be imprisoned for an "indeterminate" period of months, or even years. The convict's minimum, "fixed" sentence set by a district court judge is just that -- a minimum. But in rare occurrences a prisoner finds himself held by IDOC on pat religious grounds. Despite the obvious constitutional issues (or one might rather say abuses), IDOC presses its "programming" brainworks as somehow a viable alternative to Jesus Christ. A convict truly born again in Christ must choose between the two paths, and only by the primrose path of state programming can a prisoner ever get his chance at parole. No exceptions....

In yet another JPay snafu, the service provider informed all IDOC prisoners via memo on January 22, 2018 that due to an unforseen technical issue, all inmate passwords would (on January 23) be reset to a temporary password consisting of the inmate's 4 digit birth month and year, but as it turned out, the temporary passwords were the birth month and day (e.g. 0404 for April 4th). The memo also advised prisoners - in bold and capitalized text - that to protect their account, prisoners were to log into their account, "as soon as possible after 0900 to reset the temporary password to a different password." Unfortunately, the new JPay system will not allow inmates to change their passwords and there are no options in the drop-down menu to contact JPay regarding password matters using their madatory "communications center" on the kiosk. According to staff, JPay has told IDOC administrators as late as Tuesday afternoon (1/23) that the system is working perfectly. The s...

For years, prison administrators have held the party line that inmate cell phone access in prisons is one of the biggest security threats they face. While there are some legitimate security concerns, the primary problem with inmates having cell phones isn't the calls they make, who they call or what they talk about, it's how much money prisons DON'T make when inmates have alternatives to the prison-provided inmate telephone systems.  The IDOC (for example) receives more than a quarter million dollars PER MONTH on inmate telephone calls due to the kickbacks they receive from the inmate telephone service provider (CenturyLink / Inmate Calling Solutions, ICS) on each call made by a prisoner on the inmate telephone system [FN1]. With every kicked back dollar representing pure profit, the IDOC (and other prison systems) jack up the security risk rhetoric when there is even a chance that prisoners can bypass this untethered, runaway revenue generating machine. That said, the rate...

With all Govorner Butch Otter's lip service being paid to tightening cyber security within state government during the 2018 State of the State address, the IDOC maintains SOPs related to computer [data] access by staff which not only threaten the privacy rights of prisoners and their families, but may endanger the very lives of crime victims. Prior to a convicted felon being sentenced, the IDOC conducts a comprehensive investigation into the past and present of the defendant and generates a report called a Presentence Investigation report or PSI (Idaho Criminal Rule 32). The stated purpose of this report is to allow the sentencing judge to consider various factors about the defendant, including (but not limited to) criminal and civil records, social history (famiy and friendships), employment, financial and medical history (physical and mental), even the defendant's "sense of values and outlook on life in general" [ICR 32 (b)(9)]. The report may also contain the opini...

Guest post by Erik Buchanan In December, 2017, IDOC officially announced plans to [again] house Idaho prisoners in other (as yet unidentified) states to alleviate prison overcrowding. The announcement indicates that transfers of prisoners will begin around March of 2018 and involve 200 to 300 Idaho prisoners - in many cases moving prisoners hundreds (if not thousands) of miles from family and friends who routinely visit them. Contracting with other states to house Idaho prisoners is no more than a temporary solution with an exceptional taxpayer price tag and does nothing to correct the original issue of overcrowding in Idaho prisons - too many prisoners and not enough beds (resources). Below are a couple real solutions to the overcrowding issue that is currently taking place in the Idaho Department of Correction - solutions presented from the perspective of those of us who are currently housed within the walls of the prisons - that make sense, are cost effective and would not require ...

With all the rules and regulations imposed by prison administrators, it would seem that every action taken by a prisoner would be in some way covered or (usually) prohibited by policy. The lack of some (rule) coverage leaves some prisoners no option but to involve the courts in prisoner disputes. In many instances though, if a prisoner violates a prison rule and is punished by prison authorities, a prisoner who is considered a victim (of an assault, etc.) may still have standing to file - and win - a legal action in the courts.  Take for instance an incident which occurred at the ISCC in December, 2017. An inmate (we'll call him Bubba) stands up in the middle of a crowded dining room and falsely accuses another prisoner (we'll call him Doe) - in front of hundreds of other inmates and staff - of possessing and viewing child pornography. Bubba's primary intent was to goad Doe into a physical altercation, as such a response is the only "prison way" of denying such ...

In response to pressures and logic, the IDOC is now planning to install kiosks which will allow prisoners to access legal "case law" (see the posting "IDAHO PRISONERS SEEK ACLU ASSISTANCE IN LAWSUIT TO OBTAIN LAW LIBRARY FACILITIES" and the accompanying email to the National and Idaho Chapters of the ACLU by Dale Shackelford in the November, 2017 Archives section of this blog). While there is no exact date for the installation and availability for these facilities, all indications are that they will be available "sooner than later" according to staff who received an email regarding the matter just before Christmas (2017). Reports are that ISCC will receive 4 such kiosks - too few for 2,200 prisoners, but certainly a start. I would like to thank all of those who helped get this ball rolling by forwarding copies of the email and blog postings (and links) to IDOC administrators and ACLU decision-makers. Your assistance in getting this information out there an...

In a previous blog posting titled "CRIMINAL LEGAL NEWS - A Review", I stated the following: "While I have a couple misgivings about (one) publication I purchased through PLN, I don't believe that I will have such misgivings about a subscription to CLN." To clarify and correct this statement, I should note that the publication with which I was unhappy was NOT published by or through Prison Legal News (PLN), but rather was simply advertised in the pages of PLN. Of the many books published by or through PLN that I have purchased directly or purchased for me by others, there has never been an instance of regret or misgiving. I realize that PLN doesn't have control over other people's customer service or the quality of [their] products and should have been more clear in my post. If you are looking for reading materials to send to a friend or loved one who is incarcerated, or a friend or family member who is simply interested in what goes on in "the syste...

For more than a decade, and with few exceptions, the IDOC has declared war on female breasts - or, at least pictorial representations of breasts. Whether these representations are photographs, cave paintings or drawings as elementary as a stick figure with circles on the chest, IDOC staff spend hundreds if not thousands of man-hours every month scanning pages of magazines and mail (regular and electronic), searching cells and consulting with each other (how much boob is too much boob?) in an effort to determine what is and what is not allowed per SOP. Unbeknownst to IDOC staff (until now I suppose), there is a new weapon for prisoners to use in the Battle of the Nipple. IDOC SOP prohibits prisoners from possessing or receiving "sexually explicit and pornographic material" - which includes "pictorial depictions of nudity". Nudity, as defined by (the same) SOP means "[a] pictorial depiction where male or female genitalia, anus, OR THE NIPPLE OR AREOLA OF FEMALE B...