InvestigateWest
By Whitney Bryen / InvestigateWest
IDAHO (InvestigateWest) — On the nearly four-hour drive from a southeast Idaho prison, Kristine Scott was optimistic. One of 15 women transferred on April 3 to a minimum security prison in Boise, Scott was told she’d work at the community reentry center and live in one of the least restrictive facilities in Idaho’s prison system.
But when the women arrived at the South Idaho Correctional Institution, Scott said staff told them there weren’t enough beds available in the dorms. Instead, she and five other women were led to a segregated housing unit usually reserved as punishment for inmates who violate the rules or pose a safety risk — a unit known to prisoners as “the hole.”
For 23 hours a day, the women were confined in pairs to small cells with only a bunk bed, sink and toilet, said Scott, who is serving a four-year sentence for drug possession. Every morning at 7, Scott and her roommate were handcuffed and taken to what women described as a 4-by-5 foot cage outdoors for an hour of recreation. Except for a 10-minute trip to the showers every other day, it was the only time they were allowed out of the cell. They couldn’t see or speak to other inmates. Their communication with family and friends was limited. And they had no idea how long they would be there.
“They’re treating us like we’re in trouble when we haven’t done anything,” Scott said. “I got moved from a work center to be stuck in the hole. So we’re basically being punished even though we’ve had good behavior.”
Idaho’s tough-on-crime policies have led to the highest women’s incarceration rate in the nation, according to state and federal data. Only six states have a higher men’s incarceration rate, the federal data shows. Idaho’s rapid rise in incarceration rates has left the state with more prisoners than space to house them, and those already incarcerated say they’re unfairly being punished for it.
Ritchie Eppink, a civil rights attorney at Idaho’s Wrest Collective, said placing inmates in segregation because of overcrowding is a symptom of Idaho’s “addiction to incarceration.” It also violates prisoners’ civil rights, regardless of why they’re being isolated, he said.
“The research is clear that this kind of segregation, isolation, putting people in solitary confinement conditions causes long-lasting harm, even over very short periods of time,” Eppink said. “It has mental health consequences that can be long lasting. It impacts people’s anger and ability to cope with the conditions of their imprisonment. And it’s counterproductive for the prisoners, for the staff and for society.”
The Department of Correction, which declined interview requests for this story, posted on its website in March that it is “operating at over 100% of capacity requiring the department to implement short-term solutions” such as moving hundreds of men to prisons out of state. That will free up bed space in Idaho men’s facilities for now, but women’s prisons are bursting at the seams, which could mean more reliance on segregation cells for overflow housing.
Idaho prisons have the capacity for 1,184 women, according to an April 22 email from the department. That day, there were 1,188 women in custody.
The Idaho Department of Correction has moved hundreds of incarcerated men to out-of-state prisons far from their families to in response to Idaho’s rising incarceration rates. (Provided/Idaho Department of Correction)
The decision to subject women to segregated housing restrictions for non-disciplinary reasons defies state policy, along with state and national efforts to limit such practices. The nonprofit Vera Institute, which works with prisons to reduce the use of segregation, found that restrictive housing leads to “unwanted and harmful outcomes for the mental and physical health of those in isolation, the well-being of staff, facility safety, corrections budgets of jurisdictions that rely on the practice, and the public safety of the communities to which most will return.”
Restrictive housing is meant to protect staff and inmates from “those who are the most violent or present the greatest danger to the safe operations of the facilities,” according to Idaho Department of Correction policies. Those policies also allow inmates to be moved to a restrictive housing unit if a bed is not available in the appropriate housing unit when they arrive at a facility. This places them in “transit status,” which the policy states is “not a form of restrictive housing even if the inmate remains in the restrictive housing unit.” The standards require inmates to be allowed out of their cell for at least three hours a day, have access to their personal property and attend visits.
But current and former inmates said staff at South Idaho Correctional Institution are violating department policies.
InvestigateWest interviewed five women who were placed in segregated units at the Boise prison since 2020 due to overcrowding. Scott and her roommate spent five days in segregation, according to Department of Correction records. Others were there for weeks. Some of the women were allowed to have personal items. Others were not. All of them said they were confined to their cell for 23 hours a day.
“For me it was the most depressing and humiliating time I had in the three years I was incarcerated,” said Tena Bishop, who spent two weeks in segregation waiting for a bed after she was transferred to the Boise prison in 2023. “Segregation is the worst time anyone can do. It makes you suicidal.”
The Department of Correction refused requests for an interview about how it’s addressing overcrowding and its use of segregated housing for overflow. In an email, the department said only that “restrictive housing and segregation units continue to be used according to standard protocols.”
Idaho has the highest women’s incarceration rate in the nation, according to federal data, leading the state to spend $182.5 million on a new women’s prison that will house 512 inmates. The project broke ground in the fall and is expected to be completed at the end of 2027. (Provided/Idaho Department of Correction)
Efforts to reform Idaho’s use of restrictive housing in prisons began 10 years ago following a class action lawsuit and public scrutiny over violence at a privately run Idaho prison.
In a 2016 interview with Solitary Watch, a nonprofit newsroom that covers prison conditions, then-Department of Correction Director Kevin Kempf said Idaho had reduced the number of segregation cells by more than 25% and that “the only type of inmate that [we] will still have in a temporary segregation cell, is an inmate that has demonstrated a true threat to other inmates or to a staff member.”
The following year, department leaders and prison staff received training on new policies that limited the amount of time prisoners can spend in segregation and its use as punishment for rule violations. The reforms did not address the use of restricted units for overflow housing.
The Department of Correction broke ground last fall on a new women’s prison south of Boise that will house an additional 512 inmates. But the facility, which will cost taxpayers $182.5 million, won’t be ready for inmates until at least the end of 2027, leaving the department with few options for managing overcrowding.
It’s unclear what protocols prison staff are using to determine which inmates are sent to segregation once the minimum and medium security beds are full. Eppink, the Wrest Collective attorney and former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, said a lack of transparency around how and why these kinds of decisions are made suggests that prison staff know they’re doing something they shouldn’t.
“IDOC is trying to deal with a problem that it’s not prepared to properly address,” Eppink said, referring to the Idaho Department of Correction. “And that is when civil rights and human rights abuses begin.”
Isolation, even with a roommate, can leave prisoners with feelings of hurt, exclusion, rejection or loss that can linger for months or even years, according to a 2020 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, which studies and advocates for the rights of incarcerated people across the U.S.
“Prisons and jails are already inherently harmful, and placing people in solitary confinement adds an extra burden of stress that has been shown to cause permanent changes to people’s brains and personalities,” according to the report.
Studies on the negative effects of segregation have prompted prisons across the country to reform not only segregation protocols, but other housing units as well. Since 2009, at least 42 states have laws limiting how long prisoners can spend in solitary confinement or banning its use for pregnant, mentally ill or LGBTQ inmates, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates policies to protect prisoner rights. Idaho is not one of them.
During that time, the Idaho Department of Correction has implemented internal policies and protocols aimed at reducing its use of segregation and improving the treatment of inmates, who are referred to as “residents” by prison staff. Improvements to Idaho’s minimum security facilities make some living spaces look more like dormitories than cells. The unit Scott expected to move into when she arrived in Boise is a large open room with dozens of bunk beds, several windows with natural light and a recreation area with a couch, television, microwave and tables where women play cards and eat together. They have access to a gym and an outdoor track. One wall hosts a row of phones while another holds machines that inmates can use to message family and friends.
That’s similar to the unit where Bishop lived in Pocatello before she was transferred to Boise on May 4, 2023, to be closer to her family. Other inmates warned her that she might be put in segregation when she arrived. It had happened to them and others they knew, and they wanted her to be prepared. As the bus passed the cage where segregated inmates spent their hour of allotted recreation time, Bishop was certain it wouldn’t happen to her. But then she learned from staff that there were no beds available in the unit where she was slated to go.
Bishop, who was convicted of selling drugs, was forced to give up her personal belongings that included food she purchased from the commissary and letters from her daughters. She couldn’t take her sweatshirt or extra underwear. She would get it all back when a bed opened up in the less restricted units.
Bishop spent two “degrading” weeks in the hole, she said. It’s where she ate every meal, stared out the tiny window in the door and used the bathroom with her roommate sitting nearby. Bishop opted not to go outside for recreation time, she said, “because I was not going to be out there like a dog in a cage.”
The only time she left the cell was to take a shower twice a week.
“It was devastating to me,” Bishop said. “I felt like I was dehumanized. It’s just inhumane treatment.”
InvestigateWest (investigatewest.org) is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Contact reporter Whitney Bryen at whitney@investigatewest.org or 208-918-2458.
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