Cottonwood Warden Asks To Step Down

Jim Rehder, warden of the North Idaho Correctional Institution and its innovative boot camp program, has resigned his post, Correction Department officials announced Tuesday.

The administrator of the Cottonwood prison asked agency Director Jim Spalding in a Dec. 11 letter for a voluntary demotion within the department.

“The time is right for a change and I believe my decision is the right thing to do,” Rehder said. “My stepping down at this time will allow fresh leadership to bring a new management persona to the institution.”

Rehder has spent his entire 22-year career at Cottonwood, working as a teacher and then education program manager.

“Jim Rehder is an extremely loyal employee and is extremely committed to the mission of the department,” Spalding said. “He will stay in the (prison) system. You bet.”

The prison has long operated the so-called “rider program,” where sentencing judges retain jurisdiction over inmates for the first three to six months of incarceration.

Inmates go through a rigorous program like a military boot camp which often dissuades them from committing crimes after their release.