Idaho Prison Blog

For years, the IDOC has denied the public access to video footage of prison surveillance cameras under the theory that the footage would disclose camera angles and building construction that could represent a security threat were the public have that information. Other than footage used in lawsuits stemming from beatings or other violence (which, once used in court become a matter of public record unless specifically sealed by the court) - the public is blindfolded by the state. On April 13, 2023 the ISCC held an "Open House", giving the public an opportunity to walk through the prison on escorted tours, looking into carefully prepared, regimented and recently cleaned/painted areas of the prison that are normally inaccessible by the public. While [public] open house tours used to be done at least once a year, the tours were halted when the pandemic struck. It has also been a tradition that the state legislature will tour facilities at least once during each legislative sessio...

In previous information provided to ISCC prisoners by administrators, the chow hall would not be used for feeding until there were enough officers to cover other activities - including recreation. While the chow hall is now serving meals (take-out style) while 10 to 15 guards look on (rather than a single unit guard feeding an entire unit), recreation is continuously being cancelled due to lack of staff, and the safety of prisoners and staff, just like recreation, is taking a back seat to convenience. While a lack of correctional officers is in and of itself a concern, so too should be the fact that those who are on duty are not actually [or properly] supervising prisoners. In some cases, having a camera in an area is enough to consider the prisoners "supervised", whether or not prisoners are within the field of view - or the camera feed is being monitored. So long as using this loose interpretation of supervision reduces the actual work being done by guards, it will continue...

In what is becoming an epidemic at the ISCC, hundreds of medical appointments every month are being missed by prisoners simply because the prisoners aren't notified that the appointments have been scheduled. In addition to failing to address the medical needs of the prisoners, it constitutes a violation of prisoners rights to be free from cruel and usual punishment through deliberate indifference to medical needs. As it stands, when a prisoner has a medical appointment at the ISCC, a designated staff member (usually the corrections officer assigned to the medical department) will telephone the housing unit to which the prisoner is assigned, and ask that the prisoner be sent to the medical department. While unit staff most often will page the prisoner on the tier, the noise levels in these areas are so out of control (staff refuse to address the issue) that people cannot hear the page. Other issues include the fact that the PA stem is often unintelligible, prisoners may be in their ...

For years, since shortly after the beginning of the Covid -19 outbreak, prisoners at the ISCC have been fed their meals in their housing units, and while there have been issues with feeding prisoners in this fashion, those issues are minor when compared with feeding prisoners in the chow hall (see the post BREAKFAST IN BED - SHOULD GUARDS DELIVER PRISONER MEALS TO CELLS? on this site). On March 27, 2023, in an effort to move towards resuming normal operations in the feeding schedule, ISCC administrators went from handing out the meals in Styrofoam trays in the unit foyers to having prisoners walk to the chow hall (more than a half mile round trip for some), pick up the exact same food-laden Styrofoam trays and carrying them back to the housing unit to be eaten there. Apparently, this is supposed to acclimate prisoners to going to the chow hall, where they will eventually then be forced to eat their meals. But there are problems already. First, though the plan is to pass out trays to o...