Previous: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, Jun. 2020
Welcome to the July issue of First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter that addresses Idaho Corrections concerns.
Brought to you by The Captive Perspective and made available at bookofirving82431.com.
This publication provides an insider’s look at issues affecting the Idaho Department of Correction’s community. If you wish to assist this effort, share the link, cut and paste, or print and send a copy to another
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Our Mission: To better develop our current state of Corrections.
The Idaho Legislature shares our mission and welcomes your comments! Feel free to send them your thoughts, attached to a copy of this publication.
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AMONG THE BLOOD UNMENTIONED IN JUNE:
Four separate trails, in front of my cell, from upstairs to down-, one for each owner. And collecting in a puddle, the source slammed facedown, wrists and ankles already restrained, to be broken-nose subdued — as if several minutes of gassing just didn’t take.
I watched the puddle form feet away from the cages, where we view videos and messages once a week from our loved ones — for those of us lucky enough to have them, but unable to afford the device that lets them frequent their love.
Twice the distance from the puddle to the cages — really just a few feet more — the desks, used to hang shackles and taunt us, with socialization and programs they continue to withhold.
It’s the first cell extraction I’ve witnessed in Solitary Confinement, despite having been discarded with the others for going on eight months. While choking on the gas that punishes the whole unit — somehow still considered a solution for subduing individuals — I grab my notebook and calendar, and attempt to extract the correlation of seeing four at once:
11 Months ago — Director Josh Tewalt commended Chief Chad Page and Warden Keith Yordy for moving forward with ideas of inside enclosures, modified programming chairs, and table enclosures for Restricted Housing Units (Board of Correction Meeting, 7-16-19). These ideas have yet to be used.
7 months ago — FAT! wrote the Office of Professional Standards to ask that offender complaints be considered when submitted directly to them, as some staff have responded to grievances after investigating themselves (December issue). No reply from the office was given.
6 months ago — Warden Yordy promoted a memo stating 1.5 hours of outside rec and 1.5 hours indoor day-room time would be upcoming daily, with more new program opportunities to look forward to (January issue). Today: RHU receives only one hour out-of-cell time in outdoor cages, daily — but only on the days they actually rec (count 25 days of facility rec refusal since November). Nothing in the memo appears to be true.
3 months ago — IDOC stopped all in-person contact with family and approved lists of visitors due to COVID-19.
3 weeks ago — I overheard Captain Hust tell one of the offenders now bleeding, who was then still using words to communicate a conflict he had with the staff, “Well, then it’s up to you to be the adult,” as though state employees aren’t expected of the same, regardless of the fact that they’re being tax-paid.
1 week ago — they started heavily enforcing the one hour of phone time Restricted Housing offenders are “privileged” to have once a week. (Staff sympathetic to the benefits of human communication must enforce the policy strictly, as familial love is a hazard in the extra minute or few. Meanwhile, staff are seldom reprimanded for ignoring policies that benefit offenders or pertain to themselves.)
12 hours ago — we received a memo describing the privilege we’re given to combat excessive heat once every day: “Inmates must have their own container for ice. Staff will place one scoop of ice in your container. If you are not ready at your door it will be considered a refusal of ice for the day…ice service is a privilege and can be revoked based on behavior” (Lieutenant Tamez 6-5-20).
12 hours ago — we were instructed in another memo that, from now on, if we attempt to bring our morning cup of coffee and magazine to the outside rec cages, they’ll note it as “a refusal to participate in recreation for the day” (B-Block Unit Sergeant 6-5-20).
As I’m writing — I’m listening to my neighbor choke and gasp and beg to be rolled on his side to assist his breathing, while Director Tewalt and his keyboard are typing up this:
“I can acknowledge the pain that’s being expressed here…can listen and learn, and can choose to act in ways that move our system toward greater equity and inclusion instead of otherness…Before us is the opportunity to set the example and standard for how safety agencies should operate. If you betray that trust with your actions, or fail to report others who do, you are not long for this agency. It will not be tolerated, accepted, or ignored within our agency…We’re not choosing between treating people with dignity and respect or trying to improve public safety. We can do both.” (Director’s Notes, 6-5-20).
Hmm, I wonder, four in one day…how many will it take to see the correlation?
[Recommended reading for Director Tewalt: “Exhausted Grievances in Summary (for legal and investigative purpose)” @ bookofirving82431.com]
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COVID PRISON NEWS CENSORED OVER JPAY
On June 16 FAT! received a censorship notification from IDOC’s Nathan Roe B490, who stated that a JPay correspondence was refused “in accordance with SOP 503.02.01.01…Contents: Information about another offender.” The correspondence in question? a June 15 Charles P. Pierce article in Esquire discussing a COVID-19 inmate death in a privately-run prison.
While IDOC currently contracts a large portion of their low-risk, minimum- to medium-security inmate population to the private prison company GEO Group — on the Tex-Mex border and the deadly Rio Grande — IDOC hasn’t mentioned any COVID-related deaths in this month’s updates from the Director.
But they have censored unflattering news coverage previously — of a press-filed lawsuit for public records access to Director Tewalt’s questionable purchase of lethal injection drugs in 2012.
My Concern Form’s return completes the very first stage of the grievance process. In his response, Mr. Roe suggests “you can not get any information about any offender in or out of the state.” Which is to say that the entire IDOC Law Library is guilty of trafficking in outdated case-law contraband, and now we’re liable to be punished for seeking updated precedents regarding matters already filed or those we wish to litigate: to include matters resulting from violations against offenders done by staff and State.
Whether his is an innocent misinterpretation of policy, or he’s correct in assuming that IDOC wishes to censor the majority of articles presenting prison news, will have to be answered by the grievance process — to which, thankfully, First Amend This! has access.
Still, one wonders: Will IDOC inmates be motivated if they hear about inmate lawsuits resulting from COVID-19? Will Cosby be safe if we read the progress of his case? Is it possible I’m the guy that put the hit on Epstein? Just how high up does the censorship order go? Is Governor Little trying to prevent us from witnessing presidential pardons, despite the fact that he deems us unworthy to vote?
Unfortunately these are all questions that we’ll have to conclude on our own. Unless, maybe, we do a little work together — and look down below…
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OFFENDERS FILE LAWSUIT AT IDAHO’S LARGEST PRISON OVER COVID-19 CONCERNS
Just one month before IDOC’s motion to terminate the class-action Balla lawsuit — brought over inhumane treatment and conditions at Idaho State Correctional Institution in 1984 — was granted by the courts, inmates at the Idaho State Correctional Center filed their own lawsuit alleging cruel and unusual punishment.
Reportedly two cell blocks originally meant to house 504 people are now being operated at 320 overcapacity, making even their toilet sanitation too much to maintain. Among other offender concerns mentioned: the inability to protect themselves from COVID-19, and less opportunities to rec due to facility under-staffing.
IDOC employees have acknowledged the overcrowding with the casual mention that more beds are needed. The Office of Performance Evaluations concurs, as our Idaho inmates continue to be trafficked back and forth to other states.
Still not discussed: More responsible management and correctional overhauls known to benefit other states.
IDOC’s first case of COVID-19 among the offender population was reported June 24 at ISCC. The inmate was immediately placed in isolation. As this issue goes to press, the extent of the spread is unknown.
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CONFISCATED MAIL SYSTEM: BROKE AND UNDELIVERED
July marks the fourth month of confiscated mail going lost or undelivered.
With every mail parcel that’s for any reason confiscated, offenders are given a form with the option to destroy or send it out. While the forms are then suppose to be returned to and processed by the receiving facility’s Property, IMSI’s have been venturing into the Great Unknown.
Since March this Editor has had four parcels confiscated, for reasons stated to be blemishes or stains. Two of these parcels contained personal letters (one with decades-old pictures, nostalgic in value) and the other two, issues of FAT!, sent from my family to me.
Of the four confiscated in March and early April: one remains lost, one was processed properly, one took five weeks to forward, and the other took ten — and was sent to New Jersey with instructions for Idaho, in an accumulation of events that falls nothing short of strange:
A withdrawal request (common for postage) was removed from a postage order that was dated months later, from an unrelated parcel addressed to the Courts. That parcel then mysteriously returned without the form attached, and with a sticker on it stating postage was needed. The now-missing form was then used on the fourth confiscated parcel, which was being presented as one of two examples listed in a formal complaint. Two weeks later the same missing form re-appeared as a receipt for three-times the withdrawal amount I had given consent. Thus it’s suspected that someone commandeered the form, which would have been dated recent enough to invalidate the status of “longstanding” in my complaint. However the culpritive effort failed to use the Idaho address specified when the confiscation notice was returned with the original postage order form from April. Which allows us to conclude these results on our own.
Of the three parcels tracked, two were verified as containing no noticeable blemishes or stains when viewed by final recipients. The third, sent to the Idaho Press Club for third-party documentation, wasn’t followed-up on. The fourth parcel, perhaps the most valuable, the one containing pictures of friendship in an innocent youth, initially received March 31, still hasn’t surfaced after months of many queries.
So who’s responsible?
While confiscated mail sits in the property room at the receiving facility until its time has expired or it’s received offender instructions, and while Cpl. Herrera has been designated to handle IMSI’s confiscated mail, she shouldn’t be alone as we focus our blame. At least 15 communications — written and verbal, delivered to multiple members of staff — have not received a response. In fact, the third parcel was only sent in a rush (explaining the wrong address) the week my unusual plea to avoid grieving the issue was received.
In said plea, I asked the Property room to consider how they would feel not knowing their sister had given birth, their grandma had died, or worse — was about to die and could use a message of faith.
It shouldn’t be lost upon anyone that there’s still a pandemic. And though correctional officers thumbs-up us everyday through our steel doors and windows, seldom do they view us as being kept in modern dungeons. Perhaps they’re ensuring Grandma’s last goodbye would serve to help us humanize them, too.
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WHY IDOC QUIT CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH
Nobody seems to know. Though many still remember the holiday meal served with sausage, cornbread, watermelon, and black-eyed peas, none can say for certain why it disappeared.
This reporter recalls the festive atmosphere at then-Idaho Correctional Center in 2007, when a large population of White and Hispanic inmates shared in celebration with the comparably smaller demographic of their African-American counterparts.
IDOC has yet to respond to the question of why we no longer celebrate slave liberation at the time this issue is sent to press.
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IDOC ADMINISTERS DISCIPLINE WITH PSYCHIC TECHNIQUES
Preponderance of evidence and evidentiary threshold? Ain’t nobody got time for that. But only according to Jack Fraser and the IDOC. Since this was stated in a memo back in ’19 June (yes, we possess it), we’ve watched Investigations adopt the most mysterious techniques. For instance, if two offenders on camera are seen exchanging swings, the newly employed training goes something like this:
1) Run the cameras back and count how many times unrelated offenders visit other unrelated offenders — and forget the fact those visited are still in their cage…because the behavioral patterns of one in social deprivation is the same you’ll see with any kind of dog: Let them off the leash and they turn into social monsters, conspiring about an incident in a way you’ll Make Believe.
2) If you have no audio, and you won’t, interpret any waves, handshakes or general sharing of proximity with the methods used in our handbook “How To Read Brains.” That it’s we who house them without the ability to distance from each other doesn’t make them non-complicit with any crime we deem.
Examples: If an offender holding a birthday card is matching cell counts to signatures, the intent is obviously murder, and he deserves a cage in the back, for life, immediately. If any offenders watch a fight, they too have conspired, and should be used as fodder to overflow high-security prisons until you get approved for another $500,000,000. Which you can bet your ass you’ll be sure to need — because when your little psychic presentations are taken seriously by the Parole Board, they’ll issue a thousand more years of incarceration for every small town’s worth of individuals. And when civil suits come from the deprivation of freedom resulting… Yeah, you’re definitely gonna need every fucking cent.
Remember: You don’t need hard evidence to be sadistic or an asshole. And we’ll fight any public records requests that prove it forever and a day.
Now remove your tinfoil hats, go fourth and conquer, and most of all, remember: Ms. Warwick no longer does credit, but cash will be okay.
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EXHAUSTED POLICY GRIEVANCE IN SUMMARY
Date: 3-19-2020
Location: IMSI
Number: 200000159
Responders: Baerlocker, Hartgrove, Unidentified
Status: Granted, Modified
Notes: Policies weren’t being provided in a timely manner and copies of their requests weren’t being returned for offender documentation. Issues were acknowledged, corrected and appreciated. IMSI offenders are now “required to request policies with a concern form and will need to address them to the unit policy officers. The receiving officers will then be required to fill out the concern form and return it to the requesting inmate” (5-19-20).
IMSI has yet to issue a memo to offenders notifying them of such.
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A LESSON IN DIALOGUE FROM LIEUTENANT TAMEZ
Offender Concern 6-18
To: Housing Lt. Tomez
ISSUE/CONCERN: Volunteers were required to miss rec today, so that 2nd Shift could get everyone out in one move and avoid refusing half our unit their outside time. As it gets nicer out, more people will be going outside. We’re told 3rd Shift will take no responsibility in providing us what little rec we’re suppose to get. Are our units to expect that you’ll be refusing groups of us rec daily, or will you commit your staff to working a reasonable solution that doesn’t require volunteers to sacrifice their individual rec time to assist a larger group in receiving theirs?
REPLY: Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will follow up with B-Block staff.
Thank YOU, Lt. Tamez, for the response to our concerns.
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AND: AN ATTEMPT FOR DIALOGUE FROM FAT!
Director Tewalt,
I always appreciate reading your notes. You appear thoughtful in a way that I’m sure comforts others. But I grow more disappointed the more you’re unresponsive to every invitation for discourse we extend. My mom reads your updates. As a Christian she wants to believe in the best of folks. But as a witness to reality, what’s she to do?
Included are the materials I’ve submitted to a jury of your peers. Maybe one will suggest to you a thoughtful response, and with dialogue, together, we’ll moved forward from there.
On behalf of all inmates of whose care you’re responsible…
And with my sincerest regards,
Patrick Irving 82431
IMSI
PO Box 51
Boise, ID 83707
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[Editor’s note: I have never caught a rainbow.]
“For What It’s Worth”
— Buffalo Springfield
Next: First Amend This! Bulletin: Staff Assault Inmate At IMSI 7.17.20