Idaho adds bunk beds for 300 more inmates

KUNA, Idaho – Idaho has made room for nearly 300 more prison inmates by adding bunk beds to some larger cells and taking other measures, Gov. Jim Risch announced Friday.

For several months, prison overcrowding has forced the state to house hundreds of inmates in prisons in Texas prisons at a higher cost to taxpayers.

About 445 inmates are in out-of-state prisons, and nearly 450 are in Idaho jails waiting for a prison bed, Correction Department Director Vaughn Killeen said. Every month, the state’s inmate population grows by about 40, because more inmates are entering the system than are being released.

Killeen said the 292 added beds do not violate a court order from U.S. District Judge James Fitzgerald, who last year agreed with an inmate lawsuit that prison conditions in Idaho were “dehumanizing” and ordered the state to house the overflow out of state. The new beds also comply with prison industry-group recommendations, he said.

Risch said the new beds show the state is making progress toward meeting the three goals he set out this year: Keeping inmates in Idaho, improving employee moral and providing inmates with better educational and treatment opportunities.

“When I started down this road, I had been asked to approve shipping another 100 inmates out of state,” Risch said, noting that Killeen has done “some innovative things.”

Besides the 292 beds added by doubling capacity with bunk beds, the Correction Department has determined that an additional 50 beds can be rented in county jails, and that a new “sprung structure” at the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna has room for 100 more inmates.

The sprung structure is a cross between a tent and a traditional building, made of a special fabric stretched over an aluminum frame and filled with insulation, and set on a concrete foundation. The fabric will have to be replaced in 20 to 30 years.

It cost $1.47 million, less than the estimated $2.2 million cost of a traditional building of similar size. Construction began in February and was completed in September. So far, utility costs are about 30 percent less than those of comparable buildings on the prison campus, Warden Randy Blades said.

The state is also planning a new 300-bed, $16 million facility at the Idaho Correctional Center south of Boise.