Idaho’s had some bad experiences sending inmates out of state — but it’s happening again

There’s a reason Idaho prison officials say shipping inmates out of state as a way to deal with prison overcrowding is a “last resort.”

Idaho’s had lots of experience at this, and much of it has been very bad.

In 1997, Idaho sent 300 inmates to the Basile Detention Center in Louisiana. The result: A riot in which Idaho inmates, complaining about the conditions at the steamy southern lockup, caused $35,000 in property damage, and five Idaho inmates escaped, including two murderers, a rapist, a child molester and a burglar.

In 2005, Idaho sent 302 volunteer inmates to a private prison in Minnesota where many said they were happy with the amenities, including cable TV and educational programs. But due to state prison crowding in Minnesota, most of the Idaho inmates were bumped in 2006 and shipped off to a private prison in Texas, where there were complaints of violence against inmates by guards, a standoff when 85 Idaho inmates protested conditions there by refusing to return to their cells, and two escapes.

In the fallout from those incidents, a deputy warden retired, and the Idaho prisoners were shifted to another Texas lockup operated by the same private prison company, GEO Group.

Idaho had a better experience when it signed a nearly $5 million contract in 2012 to send up to 800 inmates to a private prison in Colorado operated by Corrections Corp. of America, the same company that later was booted from operating a state prison south of Boise due to complaints of understaffing and prison violence.

Today, 306 Idaho inmates are at a GEO Group-operated jail in Texas, the Karnes County Correctional Center, and most are set to be shifted to another GEO-operated facility in Texas in August. But the state, bursting with an overflow of prison inmates, has struggled to find a place to put them.

Among the reasons: U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is swallowing up all the available cell space near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Already, the Karnes County Correctional Center is listed by ICE as one of its detention facilities.

“Anywhere along the border, ICE is taking up all these beds,” Pat Donaldson, chief of management services for the Idaho Department of Correction, said last week.

The Karnes County facility is a bare-bones, jail-type facility; it lacks most prison amenities, such as indoor recreation space, and in Donaldson’s words, “things for offenders to do.”

LeeAnn Clark, whose son, Chandler, is serving a mandatory minimum four-year prison term after a first-time offense of being caught with heroin, told state lawmakers in March that the young man was doing well in prison and turning his life around — until he was transferred to Texas.

“He sits in a cell 22 hours a day. The facility is dilapidated and unsanitary,” the mom told the House Judiciary Committee. “Basically after a year of moving forward in a positive direction, having a positive attitude, being a model inmate, he’s had everything taken from him,” Clark said. “His whole attitude has changed.”

From family visits two to three times a week, including visits from elderly grandparents, Clark said her son now receives no visits at all.

Jeff Zmuda, IDOC deputy director, told the state Board of Correction, “We’d like to keep them here.”

Among the concerns when Idaho inmates are shipped out of state due to lack of cell space in Idaho: By losing contact with their families, inmates’ rehabilitation often can be hampered or reversed. And the vast majority of Idaho inmates eventually are released back into the community.

State Correction Director Henry Atencio said he tried hard to find places closer to home to send Idaho’s overflow of prisoners.

Atencio contacted every state prison director in the region, looking for spare beds. “The state of Oregon has beds available, they have a facility that they have mothballed,” he said. “But the cost per day is $110 per inmate.”

In Texas, Idaho’s paying just over $69 per day per inmate — roughly equal to the average cost of incarcerating inmates in-state — but that figure doesn’t include transportation or medical care.

“Alaska has beds — they’re $162 a day,” Atencio said. “I think those are really the only two states that had beds.”

Several other states that Atencio contacted already were looking for out-of-state beds for their own inmates, he said.

“What’s happening at the federal level, the national level — that’s driving the costs up,” he said.

State Correction Board members weren’t thrilled with the out-of-state placements. “The way I look at it, is this is just kind of a Band-Aid,” said Dr. Richard McClusky. “The money it’s going to cost us in 10 years doing this is much more than it’s going to cost us to build a new prison.“

Said board member Cindy Wilson, “The research tells us that family interaction is going to help with our recidivism, and that’s another reason for us to be looking at a new facility here in Idaho.”

Recidivism refers to inmates who leave prison only to return on new charges — a costly “revolving door” that the Council of State Governments found is driving Idaho’s prison population growth and costing state taxpayers millions.

The board is currently mulling recommending a new 1,510-bed state prison, along with a series of smaller expansions at existing prison facilities, adding up to $500 million. The board plans to vote on the plan before the end of June.

If the board approves it, the big prison expansion would be included in budget requests submitted to the governor in September, and could be before state lawmakers in January.