Prisons at ‘tipping point’

BOISE – Idaho’s state prisons are more than full, and the state can’t keep putting extra inmates in tents and setting up cots, the state corrections director told lawmakers Thursday.

While the state has gained 800 inmates in the last four years, it’s cut back its prison staffing by 28 employees. “This offender-staff trend leaves me great concerns about the safety of our institutions,” Tom Beauclair told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

Prisons where extra inmates have been crowded in have reported a rise in assaults, increased contraband, more anti-social behavior and other problems, Beauclair said.

He’s going to federal court next week to try to get a population cap lifted to allow double-bunking in nearly all the remaining single cells at the main state prison south of Boise.

“The reality we face is the prison population has more than doubled in the past decade,” Beauclair told legislators. “There are no significant construction projects planned to manage this growth. Even if we received capital today, it would take three years to build a new prison.”

Lawmakers were hushed at the news.

“You paint a pretty bleak picture,” said Sen. Brent Hill, R-Rexburg.

“It’s a very thorough and very disheartening report,” said JFAC Co-Chairwoman Maxine Bell, R-Jerome.

Beauclair said Idaho’s prison system has reached a “tipping point.” It releases 3,000 inmates a year, and 98 percent of Idaho inmates eventually will be released back into the community. But overcrowding – and, if necessary, shipping inmates out of state – cuts into the prison programs that try to rehabilitate inmates, end their drug habits, give them job skills and keep them from committing new crimes.

“Do you want a system filled with violence, unprofessional …?” Beauclair asked the lawmakers. “Three thousand inmates returning to our communities filled with hatred and no job skills?”

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is appointing a new Criminal Justice Commission to try to deal with the problem, and its members could be named as soon as this week.

“We’re at a point to where either we’re going to have to develop significant policy changes regarding the prison population, or increase capacity,” said Mike Journee, press secretary for the governor. “That’s the kind of thing this commission will take a look at.”

But the governor has no plans to back off from the new mandatory minimum sentences he pushed through the Legislature for methamphetamine manufacturers and traffickers.

Beauclair told the budget panel that in 2004, 229 new inmates came to prison under mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking, and there were 691 behind bars on those minimum sentences. “These people are staying longer – I’m not saying they shouldn’t – that certainly creates some growth,” he said.

Journee said Kempthorne has no regrets about championing the mandatory sentence law. “The governor is committed to fighting methamphetamine with every tool he has at his disposal,” he said.

In fact, that’s one of the three charges to the new Criminal Justice Commission. The panel will explore how to reduce Idaho’s inmate population, how to deal with gang activity across the state, and the methamphetamine problem.

Possible solutions could range from building a new prison to focusing more on diversion programs, Beauclair said.

If he doesn’t win court approval to lift the prison population cap, Beauclair said Idaho will have to begin shipping inmates out of state immediately. That’s a costly and unpopular prospect.

For the coming year, Beauclair is requesting a number of “stop-gap” measures, including constructing a temporary “sprung structure” building at the Idaho State Correctional Institution south of Boise to house 100 offenders; double-bunking to squeeze another 150 inmates into ISCI; and a 128-bed expansion at the South Boise Women’s Correctional Center.

Inmates were housed in tents through November at the South Idaho Correctional Institution near Boise and the St. Anthony Work Camp; 60 cots were set up in a gymnasium through December at the North Idaho Correctional Institution at Cottonwood; and 20 cots have been set up for overflow inmates at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center.

“I am deeply concerned about it,” Beauclair said. “We’ve done a very good job, I think, of managing this population in a difficult time. The message I’m trying to send is we just can’t keep adding inmates into facilities this old without additional staff.”