Idaho Prison Blog

Article II, Section 15 of the Idaho State Constitution provides that "No law shall be passed, nor shall any bill be put upon its final passage until ... [the bill] shall have been read on three several days in each house previous to the vote thereon..." The constitutional provision also requires that on the final passage of bills (in each of legislative bodies - House and Senate) - usually referred to as the "third reading" - all bills SHALL be read at length, section by section in the respective body. These constitutional mandates are not only being ignored, legislators are actively, knowingly and intentionally falsifying the official state record (journal) regarding the goings-on in the law-making process. Upon the introduction of a bill for a vote in either state legislative body, virtually every bill, whether on the first, second or third (calendar) reading of the bill, the sponsor of the bill will make the following request of the body leader (Speaker of the Ho...

(Guest post by Phillip Turney) Inmates at the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) have filed a class action lawsuit alleging the state fails to provide meaningful medical treatment for patients infected with the Hepatitis-C Virus (HCV). The suit, filed January 2, 2018 in federal court in Boise claims that corrections officials, together with its contracted medical provider Corizon Health, are discriminating against prisoners with with HCV and have failed to provide the community standard-of-care for treatment of hepatitis C patients. As many as 3,000 Idaho prisoners are known to be positive for HCV. State law (Idaho Code 39-601and 39-604) mandates that inmates be screened upon entering prison, and again before release. If infected with a communicable disease, they are supposed to receive treatment. IDOC has treated less than 60 prisoners with current era medications. In 2013 a virtual breakthrough in medicine occurred when direct acting antiviral medications (DAA's) came to marke...

On January 18, 2018 a friend sent me an email with 3 photos attached. Next day, I received a document from ISCC staff that informed me that the 3 photos had been "censored" (i.e. confiscated). This was all within the protocol / guidelines of the IDOC's Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) - except for the fact that the photos themselves are, per SOP, authorized (I'll get to that later). For days thereafter, I waited for the rest of the email (text) to be delivered. After not receiving the email for more than 2 weeks, I wrote a Concern Form [FN 1] to ISCC Investigations on January 31, 2018 asking when I could expect to receive the email text. Not receiving a response to my Concern Form in the time prescribed by policy, I filed a grievance, asking that my email be delivered. On February 12, 2018, my Concern Form was returned, and the following Reply from Investigations Sergeant Mileski reads as follows: "Text of email sent to you w/o photo's [sic] of whatever you...

Dear Idaho Public Television Administrators: The Idaho Department of Correction has, over the past couple years, allowed prisoners to utilize a (non-online) system whereby we may send and receive emails from the outside, purchase music, ebooks and other media such as Associated Press news. The company which has been (sub)contracted to provide these services is called JPay out of Miami, Florida. I would like to see if there is any way that Idaho Public Television could make available to Idaho prisoners the content of the idahoptv.org/channels guide that is available to the public via the internet. Many prisoners, including myself, are big fans of public television, and find much of the programming rehabilitative, educational and positive in a way most television does not seem to care about anymore. As most of these prisoners will someday find themselves released into the community, such quality programming is a tool in the rehabilitative arsenal. Some prisoners have reported that they h...

Idaho prisoners are now being staged for transfer to a 550 bed jail facility in Karnes City, Texas. As of February 5, 2018, prisoners slated to be transferred at the ISCC and other facilities are being notified of their impending moves and are being shuffled within various housing units in preparation for travel to Texas. The IDOC has not yet announced the date the transfers to the short term facility will take place, nor the means or mode of transport. Indications are that these same prisoners will then be transferred to a long-term facility once contract negotiations have been completed. Check the IDOC webpage at www.idoc.idaho.gov or click on the IDOC News link on this page for more information. DS

For more than 2 decades, inmates confined to jails, state and federal prisons and other detention facilities have utilized technology to allow remote video visitation between prisoners, attorneys and other persons on the outside. Unfortunately and inexplicably, the technology has yet to make it to Idaho prisons despite remote video visitation available even in Canyon, Ada and other county jails in Idaho. For years, IDOC administrators have continued to curb the number of days and hours of prisoner visitation in prison facilities citing reasons of overcrowding in visiting areas, reduced staff availability and time necessary to process visitors into and out of the facility. These visiting areas are often used for parole hearings, classes and other purposes, forcing cancellation of regular visiting days/hours, further reducing visiting opportunities. All the while administrators are touting the benefits of visitation and contact with family and friends as rehabilitative efforts being made...

Idaho state Representative Paul Amador (R) - (Coeur d'Alene) told the Associated Press on January 29, 2018 that there is currently a bill in the legislature to exempt breastfeeding mothers from Idaho's indecent exposure laws. The AP article also insists that Idaho is the only state in the country that does not afford these protections for new mothers. In reading Idaho statutes, indecent exposure concerns only the exposure or display of genitals, not breasts (Idaho Code 18-4116), so, only in the event a police officer (then a court) somehow interprets that breasts are indeed genitals, there is no statutory authority currently in the books to cite or arrest a topless woman - breastfeeding or not. If a court interprets that the legislative intent of the current or any new law is to equate female breasts with genitals as used within the state's indecent exposure statute, any person who exposes [her] breasts where another person is present - OR is offended or annoyed thereby - i...