Judge orders Idaho to ease prison crowding

BOISE – A federal judge ordered Idaho Tuesday to remove close to 200 inmates from its overcrowded main state prison by Oct. 28, and state corrections officials began planning to ship inmates out of state at a cost likely to amount to millions.

“The record clearly shows current and ongoing constitutional violations,” federal District Judge James M. Fitzgerald wrote in a blistering decision that faulted the state for failing to adequately provide for its ballooning prison population.

The judge found that four housing units at the Idaho State Correctional Institution haven’t improved since courts imposed population caps on them 18 years ago and ordered plumbing upgrades and other improvements. “The only substantive change in the plumbing facilities for these units from the 1987 findings is that the plumbing fixtures and pipes are 18 years older, and in need of even more frequent repairs,” the judge wrote.

Faced with constant arrivals of new inmates – every state prison is now at or above capacity, county jail overflow beds are full, and 64 inmates are being housed in tents – state prison officials double-bunked the units, exceeding the population caps, and sought court approval to lift the 18-year injunction imposing the caps. The judge refused and instead ordered the extra inmates removed.

He noted that when the caps first were imposed in 1987, the correctional institution had about 750 inmates. Today, it has more than 1,400. Meanwhile, security staff, treatment, educational and work opportunities for inmates, medical, dental and psychological services, and even food services haven’t kept pace with the growth and are dangerously strained, he found.

Fitzgerald wrote that conditions at the four housing units at correctional institution are a threat to inmates’ safety and health and are “dehumanizing and of no penological benefit.”

“The court is convinced that the IDOC (Idaho Department of Correction) officials would prefer to incarcerate inmates within the parameters of the 8th Amendment standards,” the judge wrote, “but it has continually been denied adequate funding for the tremendous growth in inmate population.”

Nicole Hancock, one of the attorneys who represented a group of inmates who brought a class-action lawsuit challenging the prison conditions, said, “Clearly, we’re pleased. … We think it’s been a long time coming. We’re sorry that it took this long, and hope that this will definitely be the step in the right direction to improve conditions out at the prison.”

The inmates’ class-action lawsuit, led by prisoner Walter Balla, was first filed in 1984.

Sending inmates out of state is costly – if 200 inmates are kept out of state for a year, it’ll cost the state roughly $4.5 million. Plus, the state loses control over the incarceration of those inmates, and some could miss out on programming that could later make them eligible for parole.

Nonetheless, inmates have been willing to volunteer. Some have no family in Idaho, according to corrections officials, and some hope they’ll land in a state whose prison system – unlike Idaho’s – allows smoking. Others are just looking for a change of scenery.

When Idaho sent 300 inmates to a private prison in Louisiana in 1997, five escaped – including one, a child molester from Kootenai County, who was on the loose for five years before being recaptured in Kentucky. About 100 Idaho inmates, incensed about the conditions at the Louisiana lockup, rioted and caused $35,000 in damage.

Mike Journee, press secretary for Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, said, “At this point we really don’t have much of a choice.”

Kempthorne appointed a Criminal Justice Commission last spring to look at options for dealing with the state’s burgeoning prison population and other crime-related issues, but the panel has met only once and hasn’t yet made any recommendations to the governor.

“He’s looking for the best recommendations that they can bring forward about how to deal with this situation,” Journee said, “because it is a bad situation that we’re in with the prison population. It’s increasing costs that are competing for dollars with the health care system and with the educational system. It’s a concern.”

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, vice-chairwoman of the Legislature’s joint budget committee, said, “Clearly we’ve got an expense here that we need to address. We have known that our prison system was reaching its maximum capacity, if not overcapacity, and we have to do something.”

In June, state Corrections Director Tom Beauclair told the budget panel that Idaho needs to build three new prisons at a cost of nearly $160 million – money that lawmakers are loathe to spend on prisons.

Many are now calling for alternatives, from re-examining Idaho’s criminal sentencing laws to speeding up its parole process, and from work-release centers and electronic monitoring to investing in more drug treatment.

Said Keough, “Those are the questions that have to be debated, and we obviously can’t avoid them anymore.”