Prison Crowding Has Officials Scrambling Plan Would Release Non-Violent Mexicans To Their Own Government

With the inmate count sky-rocketing, the Board of Correction pressed ahead Thursday with a plan to release non-violent Mexican prisoners into the custody of their government, and Correction Director James Spalding prepared to ship more inmates out of state.

“We could be into an all-time record,” Spalding said. “We’ll be at capacity in a couple of weeks.”

A brief respite in November, December and January from the average monthly population increase of 33 ended in February when the prison system gained 72 inmates. The situation has worsened during the last three weeks when 112 more inmates were imprisoned than released.

“That’s kind of mind-boggling,” Spalding said.

Even after gaining more than 150 beds with the recent opening of a maximum-security unit and an Idaho Falls work center, Spalding said, there still were more than 200 state inmates backed up in county jails around the state this week.

Another 70 beds will open up in the next few weeks when remodeling of Givens Hall at the old Hospital North in Orofino is completed.

But the next cell addition will not come until 1998 when a 500-bed, $35 million medium-security unit is added to the prison complex south of Boise.

With the prison system already pushed to the limit under a federal court order capping inmate population, Spalding said the state reasonably can expect county jails to hold no more than 250 of its inmates.

Division of Prisons Chief Dave Paskett said the population crunch has not resulted in any escalation of tension in the system.

“There isn’t anything that we can pick up where the added inmates have changed things,” Paskett told the board. “It’s very, very stable.”

To maximize available space, Board of Correction Chairman John Hayden urged prison and parole officials to encourage the 34 Mexicans currently imprisoned in Idaho for non-violent or driving-related crimes to seek commutations so they can be turned over to the Mexican government and incarcerated there.

Standing in the way of freeing those beds up, however, has been the reluctance of Mexican officials to guarantee that they will take control of those inmates and keep them from returning to the United States.