Previous: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, June 2021
WELCOME to the July issue of First Amend This!
This publication provides an insider look at issues affecting the Idaho Department of Correction 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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GET INVOLVED
IDOC will be holding monthly Townhall With Leadership meetings all through 2021. Submit your questions to brightideas@idoc.idaho.gov using the subject line “Q’s for leadership,” and be sure to attend to keep the conversation going.
Offender friends and families interested in networking concerns are encouraged to join the Idaho Inmate Family Support Group (IIFSG) on Facebook or contact them at idahoinmate@gmail.com.
Know of a resource not listed on this site? Leave the info in the comments and we’ll add it to our directory.
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EDITOR’S NOTE
This editor, you may notice, is a little thrown off. Because after months of organizing donations to diversify our library, the library has rewarded me with a 90-day suspension. The reason, they say, is that a book I returned cannot be accounted for. Which makes it the librarian’s responsibility to punish this denizen already rotting in an unreformed Ad-Seg.
It doesn’t appear to matter that, in Ad-Seg, we can only return books through our food slots when opened by staff to pass us our meals; apparently, we’re to be punished for things that staff misplace, as well as for any clericals errors made by the library.
As just one example of a counterproductive discipline, this perhaps is the one that best helps understand why some residents, when placed into Ad-Seg, literally occupy their time by painting the walls with shit.
Needless to say, I find myself affected, and not from the absence of materials to read. (I’m fortunate in that I just invested in books on prisons and programs, addictions and boundaries, etc. They’re my personal donations to the book drive I’ve been holding in an effort to improve our petulant library.) What affects me is the thought that a policy can be used to actively accelerate one’s mental deterioration.
I’m also bothered by the way that these little things add up, making it impossible to build relationships of trust with those who wish to assist, coexist, or change. Because why in the world would you ever offer your trust when all that you’ve been offered is indifference and hardship?
It’s a legitimate question. And that its various elements combined can foster radical behavior does not in anyway stretch a person’s imagination. Or, as a prison doctor cited in C. Weinstein’s “Even Dogs Confined to Cages for Long Periods of Time Go Berserk” puts it:
“…it’s kind of like kicking and beating a dog and keeping it in a cage until it gets as crazy and vicious and wild as it can possibly get, and then one day you take it out into the middle of the streets of San Francisco or Boston and you open the cage and you run away.” (pg. 121).
And on that note, this month, I’m feeling a little off. So what I’ve done here is find peace with a mosaic, one I put together by mashing new updates in with a few of my most charming articles. I’m calling it my tribute to the intrepid Si Kahn, author of “Organizing: A Guide for Grassroots Leaders” — a book I consider well worth being punished for, cruel-and-unusual-like, from those phonies at the library.
Let’s First Amend This!
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JETZT EINSTELLAN
Idaho Department of Correction
1299 N. Orchard, Suite 110
Boise, ID 83706
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IDOC CONDUCTS DAMAGE CONTROL BY CENSORING LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE–LEAVING INMATES TO WONDER, IS DIRECTOR JOSH TEWALT THE ANGEL OF DEATH?!
The IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION IS CONDUCTING DAMAGE CONTROL in response to recent news coverage. Specifically, the March 5th Tommy Simmons article, “Idaho Faces Another Lawsuit Over Lethal Injection Secrecy” at idahopress.com — which spotlighted Director Josh Tewalt’s questionable purchase of lethal injection drugs in 2012 — and Rebecca Boone’s March 2nd article, “Organizations Ask Idaho High Court To Open Execution Records,” syndicated by the Associated Press.
First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter received notice March 10th from IDOC’s JPay e-mail system that the Simmons article “cannot be delivered.” Boone, who is a member of the Idaho Press Club, has been covering the story since 2018. Her initial coverage in the Spokesman Review, “U of I Professor Sues Idaho for Execution Records,” was also “returned to sender” on JPay.
Both articles were requested following a brief mention of Tommy Simmons article during a Friday Roundtable on Idaho Matters, a radio show hosted by Gemma Gaudette, on BSU’s public radio station 91.5 FM. A small portion of the article, read over-the-air, described now-IDOC-Director Josh Tewalt’s purchase of lethal injection drugs in 2012 “…in a Tacoma, Washington, Walmart parking lot, with a briefcase full of cash.”
In addition to censoring the realm of public knowledge from their inmates, IDOC has refused to abide by Idaho’s public record laws, following a suit brought by University of Idaho’s Professor Aliza Cover. Aliza is represented by the ACLU and supported in friend-of-the-court briefs by the American Bar Association, the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Idaho Press Club, the Associated Press, the Idaho Statesman, and KTVB News.
Local news agencies aren’t alone in their struggle of having Departmental information withheld. In 2018 Contract Monitor Monte Hansen required a public records request from our Idaho inmates in Texas who wanted to understand the grievance policy that the Department was implementing on the Mexican border — a basic necessity for bringing claims forth in court. While the policy is meant to be made available free to inmates at the time of request, it took months for them to receive an actual copy. And only then did it come from the ACLU.
More recently, back here at home, IDOC Long-Term Restrictive Housing policy 319.02.01.003 was discovered not to exist, despite a hard-copy update stating it was effective in 2018.
[Adapted for FAT! from Patrick Irving’s March 11th article, “IDOC Conducts Damage Control by Censoring Local News Coverage — Leaving Inmates to Wonder, Is Director Josh Tewalt the Angel of Death?“]
[This article appeared originally appeared in the “Special Alert: Coronavirus Emergency” issue.]
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JUNETEENTH EVE CELEBRATED WITH MEAL SERVICE DOWNGRADE
Finger steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, a side of corn, and a pretty decent brownie–that’s what’s usually on the menu for Week 2, Friday. But, in preparation for the very first Juneteenth to be federally recognized as a national holiday, these cold-hearted bastards swapped all that for a potato.
Full disclosure: there was also a button of cornbread and an aborted piece of cake (1.5″ x 1.5″ each). Remnants of onion with scrapes of tomato were also found in the vicinity of the edible starchy tuber. Same for a tablespoon of chili and fingernail of dried cheese.
According to a source close to the kitchen, “There couldn’t have been a better time to debut the Woke Potato.”
Note: While some employees were noticeably missing the last weekday before Juneteenth, it’s being reported that the holiday was in no other way given presence by the department throughout its facilities–which we presume to be a matter of pandering to demographics.
We presume this because Idaho is a critical-race-theory-is-a-conspiracy state, and because it’s our director’s responsibility to cater to our governor’s political ambitions. And our governor right now is publicly beefing with our Lt. governor, the ringleader for our anti-critical-race-theory circus (she’s actually running against him). Making it extremely likely that our director was given a good talking-to about “all this Juneteenth nonsense,” and what it would mean to make Governor Little look bad leading up to his run against Lt. Governor McGeachin.
And knowing that, now, you can see it all makes sense–why we’d “celebrate” the eve with a broke-ass Woke Potato.
This publication reported on the absence of Juneteenth in our July ’20 issue. It was mentioned again in Feb. ’21.
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GOVERNOR LITTLE FINGERS INMATE’S VAGINA FOR SUPREME COURT VOYEURS
Idaho’s Governor Brad Little regards inmate’s request to be medically treated for gender dysphoria as having one too many holes for the state.
Currently unfolded, in a very hairy situation, IDOC’s failed attempt to postpone the court-ordered medical procedures initially recommended by doctors who know best.
As Governor Little struggles to powerbottom a precedent, he’s assumed the positioned to sustain quite a pounding: The State’s recent arguments to halt all procedures of the surgical sort — prior to the Supreme Court deciding whether they can pull back the curtains of confusion and find a slot for the case — were strategically resisted in a struggle to exhaust state appeals.
After being wrestled into submission on the floor of state courts, Governor Little requested a rematch be viewed in front of a federal audience, where he suspects the gears of justice will be lubed in his flavor, to assist the pull-out of Edmo’s infamous wiener transition, in what so far has been an exhibition spectacular and, according to inmates, like too many others.
Our legal analyst suspects the Governor’s insistence of holding on to the wiener in question is verging the realm of romantic. Whether or not he’ll release it from clench upon Supreme Court ruling has been the subject of rumors and concerns in circulation.
Offenders polled express general favor towards the incurring of any substantial correctional expense — especially, when done by an inmate represented in the courts. However, in general consensus, the same offender poles can’t imagine getting behind this vagina in particular.
[This article originally appeared in our June ’20 issue]
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JPAY HARDWARE UPDATE
JPay is reporting new delays with the JP6 devices that were suppose to ship in June. According to JPay, shipments are now pushed back until August 2021.
Whether the new devices will function any longer than the old ones is uncertain at this time, but it’s sincerely recommended that you not get your hopes up.
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IDOC/KEEFE/JPAY EXTORTION RACKET TARGETS IDAHO INMATES. GOOD WHOLESOME CHRISTIANS PAY THE PRICE.
Five dollars nowadays is what is a single serving of Dolly Madison zingers costs families supporting their loved ones held under the jurisdiction of the Idaho Department of Correction. The zingers recently replaced the Dolly Madison cupcakes that were selling for two dollars — which were offered themselves as a substitute for a superior brand in 2017, at the same time being doubled in price.
The zingers were recently introduced following the visitor ban implemented at all IDOC facilities — where the same serving size of zingers costs a fraction of that price when purchased through the vending machines in Visiting.
This comes only months after IDOC vendor JPAY sparked public outrage by charging inmates for public domain literary works made available by Project Gutenberg. (Project Gutenberg states with every eBook they make available that they’re “for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.”)
After their public shaming, JPay sent IDOC offenders an email stating that their heart bleeds for us, and such is our luck, they will no longer charge for what never belonged to them in the first place.
However, their bleeding heart apparently found a plug, because in a more recent message, JPay notified IDOC offenders that their correspondees will no longer benefit from the stamp prices given to offender families in Washington. That the price of a JPAY stamp in Washington is roughly 1/5 of Idaho’s price raises questions regarding IDOC’s Contract Management negotiation abilities, along with their persistent attempts to empty the coffers of inmate families.
Fortunately for IDOC inmates at GEO Group’s Eagle Pass Correctional Facility in Texas, many of the same Keefe commissary items purchased in Idaho can be ordered there for one-half to two-thirds the price. Which is curious because IDOC has historically blamed scheduled price increases on Keefe, making it more likely than not that someone needs thrown under the bus.
This reporter relied upon the zingers image provided by Keefe to assess the actual serving size. He would have bought a package to further confirm did it not have a price of FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS!
[This article first appeared in our June ’20 issue. The $5 Zingers have since been removed.]
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A REMINDER FROM CHIEF PAGE
All books and magazines must now come from one of the approved vendors listed below, or directly from the publisher. Books from outside of these vendors and books that do not contain a receipt or invoice will be returned to sender in accordance with SOP 402.02.01.001 Mail Handling in Correctional Facilities, Section 18.
Edward R Hamilton
Thrift Books
Discover Books
More Than Words
Prison Book Program
Books to Prisoners
Books sent in through religious ministries must have the ministry listed as the publisher on the book.
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IDAHO SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON THE PUBLIC’S ACCESS TO EXECUTION RECORDS
SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 — The ACLU’s Ritchie Eppink squared up with deputy attorney general Jessica Kuehn in front of the Idaho Supreme Court to battle over University of Idaho professor Aliza Cover’s 2017 public records request for documents related to how offenders are put to death by the State.
Cover’s lawsuit is a product of IDOC’s refusal to turn over the supplier of lethal injection drugs used in Idaho’s most recent executions.
In 2019 a state judge ruled in favor of Professor Cover and the ACLU’s request for information. To which IDOC appealed, concerned that identifying “their guy” would label them narcs forever, making it extremely difficult to score anything in the future.
In September’s video hearing, Mr. Eppink informed the court that IDOC has continuously missed public records request deadlines and refused to provide hundreds of pages of documents. The ACLU argues that this conflicts with their public obligation to behave like “good dudes.” He also illustrated how IDOC does not follow their own rules, as the board has never formalized the policy which allows them to hide public documents.
Apparently, IDOC is concerned it will become harder to dispatch residents if they’re required to detail how they do it, though, to date, the Department of Correction and the Board of Correction have been unable to provide any evidence at all to support their claim that pharmaceutical death brokers actually care if such information is made available: All executions thus far have taken place on a schedule and the Department’s lethal injection drug dealers have never cut them off before.
To paraphrase the attorney for the state, Jessica Kuen: Up until now, our Legislature has allowed the Board of Correction to call their own shots in terms of coverups and bucking public records. So what’s the big fuckin’ deal, man? Just because they’re called public records doesn’t mean our asshole taxpayers deserve actual access to them.
Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Burdick says the court will issue their ruling in the future.
It’s worth mentioning that local media coverage related to this story was censored from reaching our editor in March, and we too have been able to document the Department’s inability to follow their own procedures. (See: IDOC Conducts Damage Control, Regarding Disciplinary.)
[Source: Rebecca Boone, “Idaho Supreme Court Considers Lethal Injections Records Case.” 9-24-20.]
[This article first appeared in our Oct. ’20 issue.]
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COVID NEWS
Approximately 37,000 tests have been administered to IDOC residents in three states. More than 4,400 have identified positive and a total of six deaths have been reported as COVID-related.
Among residents, over 5,440 vaccinations have been fully completed, and at least 234 have received their first shot.
On June 22, the Idaho National Guard concluded IDOC’s vaccination effort by distributing the Janssen vaccine to IMSI’s Ad-Seg population. According to a doctor that accompanied the 8-member Guard unit, residents who’ve declined to be vaccinated will be given another opportunity in approximately one month. With the exception of IDOC’s newest arrivals, said a member of the Guard, all vaccination requests are now considered filled.
According to IMSI staff, visitation will be tested with Community Reentry Centers before consideration is given to other facilities.
ACLU Idaho and the law firm Shearman & Sterling are in it for the long-haul. They will remain in close contact with IDOC while monitoring all issues related COVID. Those with concerns and are invited to forward their COVID grievances to:
ACLU Idaho
PO Box 1987
Boise, ID 83701
View IDOC’s COVID numbers here.
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ALGORITHMIC ADDICTION COUNSELOR TO PALM READ RECOVERIES
IDOC has been chosen as one of 33 trial agencies to provide telehealth services in conjunction with The Addiction Forum. Using the Connections App, which touts an ability to predict and reduce relapse, substance abusers will have another form of technological redundancy when it comes time to access their counselors and peers. The tracking app, eager to schedule its abusers’ sobriety, can also, if needed, help Google available resources.
Over one thousand of our nation’s offenders will be volunteered to the program, which is funded by the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE).
Whether FORE’s algorithm is sophisticated enough to graph and monitor the entirety of Idaho’s Fourth Amendment Forfeits’ communication network, we just don’t know. But as soon as Probation and Parole sees fit to order the inoculation of all offender devices (and that should be soon), we can patch in our own Symbiont Groom™, and go full-throttle from there. We’re talking key phrases, texting activity, GPS hotspots, sporadic behavioral conduct, synchronized travel activity, proximity intimations (distance from other at-risk individuals) and, of course, familial biometrics. Once activated, suspicious configurations will be flagged and forwarded to the FORE 501(c)3 Reclamation Machine [Limited Edition!] — expected in March. Also skilled in the art of salvation and newspeak, we trust it to publicly justify attacking targeted networks.
So long as it equates “proportionate response” to “dispatch drone, corral suspected infidels and commence with whatever terroristic treatment has been fashioned for the day,” it’ll continue offering evidence that relapse was preempted, and our citizens can rest knowing all will be well.
Yes…
All. Will be. Orwell.
Source: Clinical Supervisor Gail Baker, idoc.Idaho.gov.
[This article first appeared in our Jan. ’21 issue.]
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FAT! BOOK DRIVE
The library has informed us not all donations are placed on their shelves. And when asked what they do with the donations that don’t find a shelf, the library didn’t respond. Which means, regrettably, that until we finish investigating IMSI’s librarian for embezzlement, the FAT! book drive will be treated as a crime scene.
Please stay tuned.
Thanks to everyone who contributed in June:
Black Hole Blues and Other Songs From Outer Space by Janna Levin
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
Prisons and Prison Life: Costs and Consequences by Joycelyn M. Pollock
Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison by Bruce Western
Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys by Victor M. Rios
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté, MD
Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day by Anne Katherine M.A.
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RENICK ON THE RADIO
With over 100 episodes available for streaming, Mark Renick hosts Victory Over Sin on KBXL 94.1FM, Saturdays at 12:30 pm.
This month we met Scott Jennings. Familiar with incarceration and the struggles of reentry, Scott is the acting director of Inmates to Entrepreneurs. He discussed the classes his organization offers and how television has played a role in the way they’re gaining traction.
Senator Melissa Wintrow discussed how important it is for justice-affected families communicate their experiences to state representatives–because they do take notice and appreciate all calls.
Crystal Gocken, formerly incarcerated, shared her story and a concept called Baby House. It’s Crystal’s goal to create a resource for expecting mothers soon to be incarcerated, one that would also assist them as they work through reentry. Crystal is working to prevent children from being swallowed by the foster care system as a horrible byproduct of what we’ve deemed justice.
Wayne Shaddock, with the St. Maximilian Colby Reentry Conference, is opening reentry services in the P&P building in District 3. His faith and experience were discussed on the show.
Mark works with a reentry effort under an advocacy arm of St. Vincent de Paul. Learn more @ svdpid.org and imsihopecommunityphaseii.com.
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INMATE SERVICES AT WORK
9-27-19
Dear Chad Page (Chief of Prisons):
Morning reflections, pen in hand: I thought I’d drop you a line.
We are in receipt of your memo at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution — the one about the brewing. All have agreed: the alcohol situation is out of control. We were moved that you would acknowledge this by limiting our sugar purchases. Some have gone so far as to say you’ve provided a beacon of hope.
I am speaking personally now, as an inmate having recently succumbed to his own demons — dirty rotten tricksters, they are. I come forward, stepping beyond accepting responsibility for the possession of alcohol, with a request to use my new qualifications in helping you tackle this problem head-on.
A little about myself: Patrick, Alcoholic. I never struggled with alcoholism before. This is all new to me. It is heavy with burden that I acknowledge a djinn has attached itself to my most intimate vulnerabilities. I’m here today because I’ve heard rumours among us: A treatment does exist!
The whispers describe a system that requires the helping of others to help yourself. True, it sounds of magic. But it comes of grace, not of demons.
Allow me to demonstrate by summonsing an alternate future before your very eyes: Behold! I have arrived, willing and able to actively participate in recovery. Here I am, and here I will be. Know that mine isn’t enough, I must cast the spell on you as well.
That’s it, Chief. That’s all it takes.
I happen to know this because we’ve been squirreling bits and pieces of contraband materials describing some “12 Steps,” in hopes that we can honour both our victims and our families in our making a reasonable attempt to seek rehabilitation.
I have taken the liberty of presenting you with options of costly efficiency (not a typo, we’re talking taxpayer money), issue them at your behest.
It pains me to note that upon receiving my disciplinary notification for alcohol problems, my requests that I be provided information related to alcoholism were not tolerated by my Case Manager or your Medical Provider. The Medical Provider was completely unresponsive to my needing treatment information for this behavioural disorder — the same one that is commonly referred to as a disease. I wasn’t even scheduled an appointment to assess if there was an actual medical need. It was the Case Manager that informed me I don’t qualify by Idaho Department Of Correction standards to receive the benefits of alcohol-related therapeutic treatment at IMSI. Clearly, there is a lot going on here — choose your own adventure!
Not to be discouraged, I performed my own research. I discovered a volunteer-ran group that only requires a meeting room, some free literature and a minimal of two alcoholics. Because they are clandestine in nature, it is likely you are not aware they have already infiltrated all of your facilities. Any member of this Anonymous organization will volunteer to step out of the shadows and go on the record in stating: In addition to restricting the inmates’ sugar intake, providing a meeting of the Anonymous variety may offer a healthy supplement to those actively suffering from substance abuse issues.
I know what you’re thinking: “Mr. Irving, Esq., you have ten years left until Board. Your behaviourals are likely to cure themselves in said amount of time. Should they not, tackling them six months prior your release shall have to suffice.”
To which I offer: Not treating my behaviourals during my incarceration’s entirety does nothing to establish a pattern of resistance against a lifelong history of poor decision-making. It also doesn’t assist in Correctionsing behaviors the Board expects me to discontinue before they’ll even consider me for parole.
I find there are obvious advantages in helping inmates learn about good decisions when they first arrive in prison, not moments before you release them back into the wild.
Let us now break from the radical for a brief discussion of issues Constitutional.
My friend and I watch every week as our unit neighbors are picked up from their cells to be scrubbed free of sin on Sundays. We are left on the sad side of our windows, chosen by your staff to remain in eternal damnation.
My mother talks to God every weekend, she says there is plenty of room in Heaven and Jesus intended to offer the Lord’s grace to everyone, not just the Soft Walks at our facility. You’re right in that they need forgiveness for all their despicabilities much, much more than we do. But you can only polish a turd so much, and we’d really like to chop it up with Yahweh at least once this year.
I’m not asking much, just for you to kindly address these issues. I’d prefer to direct my focus towards items more pressing.
In friendship and incarceration,
Patrick Irving 82431
[This correspondence originally appeared as “IDOC Now Hiring: Alchemist Wizards Wanted” @ bookofirving82431.com]
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SUGGESTION BOX
I suggest you fill a box full of books–you can use our donations so it doesn’t cost you anything– and then place that box of books in Ad-Seg, to be used like the box that holds books for Detention. This way, everyone in Ad-Seg can have a book at all times, regardless of whether mistakes have been made.
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Shout out to Fritzi with the Compassion Prison Project in Los Angeles!
See you next month.
“We Can’t Play Like Django”
— Alex Radus featuring Dave Cahill