Bill broadens jail sex prohibition

BOISE – A measure that would make it illegal for a prison or jail employee to have sex with a person on probation or parole cleared its first legislative hurdle Monday.

Idaho already has a law making it illegal for employees of correctional facilities to have sex with prisoners.

A first draft of the bill approved unanimously by the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee would make it clear that it is also illegal to have sexual contact with parolees or probationers, as well as those who are incarcerated but not convicted of any crime, said Steve Wolf, chief investigator for the Department of Correction’s Office of Professional Standards.

“The old statute was a bit ambiguous,” Wolf said.

The bill must be again approved by the committee before it moves into the House for debate.

Wolf said there was a case last year in which a prison employee had a sexual relationship with a woman before she was convicted, and again once the woman was placed on probation.

“We couldn’t tell if, under the statute, whether the activity was a crime,” Wolf said.

About a quarter of the cases Wolf’s office investigated last year involved sexual contact or inappropriate fraternization between department employees and prisoners.

“In essence, in the institutions it’s a security threat to have these kind of relationships,” he said.

But the law is also for the protection of prisoners, Wolf said.

Supervisors in a correctional facility are in a position to threaten convicts with stricter punishments or bad progress reports if the prisoner or parolee does not agree to sex, said Rep. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise.

The law does not make it a felony for the prisoners if they have sex with a correctional facility employee.

“I think it’s very important that they did that, because there’s a power differential there,” LeFavour said.

“I was impressed – very, very impressed.”