IDAHO LAWMAKER ADMITS REHABILITATION NOT A GOAL IN ADULT CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT
During debate on House Bill 665 on March 9, 2018, Representative Luke Malek (R - District 4: Kootenai County) stated in open session that while it is the goal and legislative intent of juvenile corrections in Idaho to develop the character and fitness for young offenders, rehabilitation is not the goal for adult offenders in Idaho.
As an attorney and a legislator since 2012, Representive Malek would certainly have knowledge of the inner workings, intricacies and intent of the laws of the State of Idaho, and with the millions of dollars of federal funding and state general fund appropriations being accepted by the Idaho Department of Correction under the guise of using it for rehabilitation of adult prisoners, the lawmaker's statement on the House floor should raise serious concerns.
For years, Idaho's adult prisoners have been required to participate in and complete various [rehabilitation] programs while incarcerated in order to have any meaningful opportunity for parole, or in some cases, prison jobs. On more than one occasion, programs have been discontinued for one reason or another (usually without notice or explanation to the prisoner participants) leaving prisoners without means to earn parole - even after having completed most of the programming. Most of these prisoners will soon be living in your neighborhoods... and you're not going to like it.
Some rehabilitative efforts in the ISCC are no more than a front for producing products and providing services for outside [non prisoner] concerns - public and private - using [unreimbursed] monies specifically appropriated for prisoner educational/rehabilitative needs. Some inmate laborers, under the guise of educational training, are officially listed as "students" yet receive pay and preferential treatment (including exemption from being transferred to out-of-state prisons) for their efforts. Many of these "students" have been in the same "class" for many years after having graduated the course. Administrators defend these actions as beneficial to the public, yet there is no accounting for the monies spent or generated by these off-the-books (and statutorily impermissible) programs.
Concerned Idaho citizens, lawmakers and politicians - especially gubernatorial candidates - should all call for an audit of the IDOCs education and rehabilitative programming models and determine if Representative Malek's on-the-record assertions regarding the legislative intent of Idaho's prisons are accurate. Whether Representative Malek unintentionally let the cat out of the bag, or subconsciously wanted to let the public know the truth, his declaration of what prisoners have known to be true for many years has now come to light.
(And where are the mainstream media to look into this?)
DS
As an attorney and a legislator since 2012, Representive Malek would certainly have knowledge of the inner workings, intricacies and intent of the laws of the State of Idaho, and with the millions of dollars of federal funding and state general fund appropriations being accepted by the Idaho Department of Correction under the guise of using it for rehabilitation of adult prisoners, the lawmaker's statement on the House floor should raise serious concerns.
For years, Idaho's adult prisoners have been required to participate in and complete various [rehabilitation] programs while incarcerated in order to have any meaningful opportunity for parole, or in some cases, prison jobs. On more than one occasion, programs have been discontinued for one reason or another (usually without notice or explanation to the prisoner participants) leaving prisoners without means to earn parole - even after having completed most of the programming. Most of these prisoners will soon be living in your neighborhoods... and you're not going to like it.
Some rehabilitative efforts in the ISCC are no more than a front for producing products and providing services for outside [non prisoner] concerns - public and private - using [unreimbursed] monies specifically appropriated for prisoner educational/rehabilitative needs. Some inmate laborers, under the guise of educational training, are officially listed as "students" yet receive pay and preferential treatment (including exemption from being transferred to out-of-state prisons) for their efforts. Many of these "students" have been in the same "class" for many years after having graduated the course. Administrators defend these actions as beneficial to the public, yet there is no accounting for the monies spent or generated by these off-the-books (and statutorily impermissible) programs.
Concerned Idaho citizens, lawmakers and politicians - especially gubernatorial candidates - should all call for an audit of the IDOCs education and rehabilitative programming models and determine if Representative Malek's on-the-record assertions regarding the legislative intent of Idaho's prisons are accurate. Whether Representative Malek unintentionally let the cat out of the bag, or subconsciously wanted to let the public know the truth, his declaration of what prisoners have known to be true for many years has now come to light.
(And where are the mainstream media to look into this?)
DS