Kempf left the department to take a new position as the executive director of the Association of State Correctional Administrators. His two years as director have been marked by dramatic changes in Idaho’s correctional system, from reductions in the use of solitary confinement to changes in prison standards and releasing hundreds of nonviolent offenders into parole programs as part of the state’s Justice Reinvestment Act.

The reforms began when Idaho dropped its private prison contractor, Corrections Corporation of America, amid a slew of allegations around staffing and poor prison standards that led inmates at the Idaho Correctional Center, the state’s largest prison, to call it “Gladiator School." Full story. Ruth Brown, Idaho Press Tribune

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