Updates

by David J. Meister, Prison Journalism Project
August 4, 2026

The recreation department used to be the center of life at Idaho State Correctional Institution. People could learn to paint or woodwork in the hobby shop. Musicians could jam with their bands in the music room. And athletes could compete in intramural sports leagues.

The department fostered a healthy community by keeping incarcerated people engaged in activities that supported their physical and mental health.

My early experiences with the recreation department embodied this mission. Soon after my arrival in 2016, I was hired to create murals for a facility-wide beautification project. Eventually my paintings of songbirds and deer were all over the yard and even in the central offices of the Idaho Department of Corrections.

The paintings were a point of pride for the department. I was part of their tours and touted as credible proof of the rehabilitation happening inside state prisons.

But that was before COVID-19 swept through the prison in 2020, halting programming and community life. The reopening efforts that followed were delayed and haphazard. When I began to advocate for their robust return, my status as a celebrated member of the corrections community ended too.

A new system of isolation

The COVID rupture was compounded by the 2021 arrival of a new administration, which had to immediately manage the acute staff shortages and health complications. In an interview, Ryan Mortensen, an IDOC spokesperson, told a Prison Journalism Project editor that staffing issues and COVID led to the decline of programming.

“Those adjustments are common in correctional settings where you have to cut back and restrict a little bit,” Mortensen said.

Recreation was hit particularly hard. Throughout 2022, the department was frequently closed and understaffed. When I approached a recreation sergeant about doing a sports tournament or league, like we used to do, he said, “We’re not doing any of that shit.”

Without a robust recreation department, conditions at ISCI worsened. People were increasingly confined in close quarters, sometimes for over 20 hours a day. Tempers flared, fights became more frequent and goodwill between staff and prisoners dissolved.

At the same time, valuable institutional knowledge was lost, making it harder to maintain operations that were allowed to reopen. Frequent staff turnover meant the officers assigned to recreation didn’t know the bleachers needed to be maintained, the courts resurfaced or the dozens of other necessities tied to running a recreation center.

One step forward, two steps back

In July 2022, I took a clerk position in hopes that I could advocate for and help return the department to its pre-COVID standard. Most importantly, I used my new position and expertise to advocate for a return to pre-COVID programming.

For a while, it worked. While there was still no support for opening the hobby shop, intramural sports or music room, I was permitted to coordinate a total of 13 holiday tournaments in 2024. This was a fraction of the 60 to 70 events we’d once hosted annually, but it felt like a win. And there were other hopeful signs. After ISCI administration changed again in mid-2025, the new warden and two new deputy wardens spoke publicly about restoring programs.

But eventually progress stalled. Tournaments were hobbled with new restrictions. The hobby shop was officially terminated and demolished. The music room was converted to storage space.

Then, at a town hall forum in July 2025, recreation leadership announced intramural sports would not be returning.

This was a blow. I knew we could do more with the resources we had at hand if we were only allowed to. But, once programming was cut, I found there was little institutional dedication to returning to the levels available pre-COVID, the kind that had fostered a healthier, more vibrant community life.

A retaliatory transfer?

Myself and others began making noise. Dozens of people incarcerated at ISCI submitted concern forms, to no avail. I filed requests with the administration, sent letters to IDOC officials, and took the fight public by starting a blog at MeisterArchive.com. “Programs produce peace, isolation breeds chaos,” I wrote on a department request form to ISCI’s new deputy warden of security.

By advocating so strongly for recreation, I knew I was making myself a target for ISCI administrators who then seemed to prefer lockdowns to programs.

Sure enough, in the summer of 2025 I received two separate warnings from staff to stop making waves. Then, in a move I strongly believe was intended to undermine my advocacy, I was suddenly put on a 26-hour bus transport from Idaho to a private prison in Arizona on Sept. 9, 2025.

In the interview with a PJP editor, Mortensen said the department is currently operating “at a little over capacity,” and thus relying on various local and out-of-state facilities to house prisoners. He said the transfer was based on institutional needs, security classification and my sentence length. In part because I am serving a life-without-parole sentence, Mortensen said “it made sense for that move to take place.”

I had been put on the transfer list before, but I had always been removed due to my specialized position working on the murals or in recreation.

This time, though, interventions from recreation staff did nothing. The administration seemed determined that the transfer would go ahead.

Mortensen denied that my position would be grounds for a transfer stay.

The price of change

From my remote cell in Arizona, I continued to protest. I posted on social media, sent letters to Idaho officials about the declining conditions at ISCI and mailed leaflets encouraging incarcerated people at ISCI to press for reforms.

On Feb. 5, 2026, I received a communication from the ISCI warden, assuring me that increased access to gym programming was a priority for prison administration.

As of April, true to his word, the warden widened recreation access. The music room was rebuilt; it’s slated to open soon. An intramural basketball season is already in progress.

This is a great sign, but the price I paid feels like a warning. In the past, ISCI administrators worked with incarcerated people to support and build their programs. Now it seems you have to choose between staying silent or speaking out as conditions worsen, knowing it might mean a one-way bus ride to Arizona.

This article first appeared on Prison Journalism Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

C. Campbell is one of 15 Idaho State Correctional Institution residents who recently completed Pillars peer-mentor training. On July 15, 2026, at a graduation ceremony in the prison chapel, he spoke to a room of prison staff, peer mentors and their visitors. This is what he said.

[Edited for length and clarity.]

Hey everyone, my name is C.J., though some of you may know me as Gideon. When I was asked to come up here and speak before you all, my initial thought was, “Well, that’s a terrible idea. I’m terrified of public speaking and have a tendency to talk way too much.”

But that’s one of the beautiful facets of the Pillars initiative; it affords us the space to venture out of our comfort zone and grow. And maybe, if I’m terrified as hell to be up here, yet here I am, shaking and getting through it, speaking on something I truly believe in, then, just maybe, it will inspire someone else to let their voice be heard in a powerful way, and they could inspire someone else and so forth, until I have engendered a change far beyond my purview.

So in the next 20 years or so, when an individual is winning a Pulitzer for their awesome speech-writing, I’ll let out a little smile and tell myself, “I did that.”

You know, my upbringing cultivated in me a belief that Life makes you pay for every victory that you gain. It made me weary of success, afraid of love, and terrified of happiness. I grew up around drugs, alcohol, sexual and physical abuse, and blind hatred. Some of the images from my past that haunt me will stay imprinted in my mind until the day I die. To this day, I carry with me traumas that I still can’t speak on, that I’m terrified of sharing with anyone else.

Nevertheless, I credit my childhood with showing me three valuable things, which I remember coming to own while sitting in my seventh-grade principal’s office. My friend Richard and I had been caught stealing items around the school that could be used as drug paraphernalia. I remember sitting before the principal pleading, not for myself but for him to show Richard mercy. I explained how both Richard’s sister and brother died at the age of 18. He had no mother to speak of and barely knew and spoke to his father. He had pushed away almost everyone who tried to care for him or get close. All he had was me.

Richard made the poor choices because he couldn’t afford the better ones.

Thinking I could make a case for my friend to not be expelled, I claimed that Richard’s rough life was to blame for the reasons he did the things he did. But what I wasn’t anticipating was that the principal personally knew my family and, along with them, my story.

He pointed out that I, too, had had a rough life, yet I didn’t go down the same paths as Richard. He said I was mostly a good kid who rose above my adversities and didn’t allow my circumstances to define my situation in life.

“Why do you think that is?” he said.

Without giving it so much as a thought, I said, “The life I’ve lived and the things I’ve seen have shown me who I don’t want to be, what kind of life I don’t want to live and what kind of world I want to live in.”

After saying it, I sat there in a pregnant silence, repeating my own words and wondering what the hell made me say them.

The principal quietly let it sink in: my actions were not matching the life I wanted for myself.

I was dismissed without any punishment; but a ripple had already shifted the reality of my core.

From that moment on, I knew I wanted to make a difference and help to change the lives of others, instead of just watching them pass me by. But how? At 13 years old, I had a destination and a mission statement–but I lacked knowledge and direction and resources.

And so I wandered through life the best I could, doing things that I thought would help others and fulfill my youthful vision. But apparently my vision was clouded, because what I didn’t see then was that I was doing those things for myself. Doing them for my own pride. For the wrong reasons. Wandering aimlessly.

Being part of the Pillars initiative, I have since found that missing direction. Never before have I experienced such a perfect fit for the lifestyle I’m living and the dream I want to accomplish. I stand up here today because our shared vision as mentors is something I not only vehemently stand behind, but am also proud to stand for; to build a community of unity, growth and positivity, if I may sum it up in my own short words.

But why stop within these walls?

I ask, what is legacy? Phenom Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote it perfectly in a song for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton: “What is legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” We aren’t making these change for ourselves. We are making them for those who come after us. Not just for those who lose their way and for those whose struggle to find one lands them here, but for anyone who has ever wanted something better for themselves. We are embracing the next generation by laying blueprints for a better future. The foundation that we are building, those of us here in this room, grows stronger with each person we touch and inspire–each time we show another the way.

He’s probably getting tired of me quoting him by now, but I once heard a truly great man say something seemingly small, not even directly to me, but it impacted me to the very core: “We are in the business of ripples.” Thank you, Patrick, for creating such an incredible ripple in my life, because that has been the key to me finding my direction, the catalyst that is now propelling me to the man I want to be and have wanted to be since the seventh grade.

My grandmother always taught me to pay it forward. And at her memorial service, I vowed to continue that belief and live it. And now, because of the mentors in my life who have welcomed me as family and helped to guide me along in my journey, I feel like I can finally, truly, honor that promise–honor my grandma’s legacy.

That’s what this initiative has done for me, what I hope it does for each of you, and for everyone who comes after us.

I wish to close by encouraging everyone here in this room to start big, start small, be it today, tomorrow or the day after–be the force of positive change in someone else’s life. Start a ripple and create with me the motions that will effect those around us and beyond.

A few brave immigrants once traveled across an ocean and created a nation that has now survived 250 years. Let us see what kind of world we, too, can create by daring to be different and challenging the status quo.

It starts with a ripple. It starts with you. It starts with us. And it starts now.

To the next 250 years, to the Pillars initiative, and to those who come next.

Thank you.

[A version of this story was previously published at  MeisterArchive.com]

By David J. Meister
June 27, 2026

After 14 years of continual litigation, a federal judge has finally ordered the takeover of medical services in Arizona State Prisons.

The United States District Court for the District of Arizona addressed unconstitutionally deficient medical care for prisoners in the State of Arizona, ordering experts to conduct an evaluation and file a report. Experts found Arizona “substantially non-compliant” and that State officials’ efforts to self-assess were “totally unreliable.” The experts provided a written, detailed discussion of the specific deficiencies, and included comprehensive medical evaluations conducted by auditors of some patients, finding the patients had received very poor medical treatment.

District Judge Roslyn Silver said it bluntly, the prison healthcare system is, quote, “AN INTOLERABLE GRAVE AND IMMEDIATE THREAT OF CONTINUING HARM AND SUFFERING because the systemic deficiencies pervade the administration of health care.” See Jensen v. Thornell, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33723, at *16 (D. Arizona Feb. 19, 2026).

Much the same can be said of systems from Pennsylvania to California where prison healthcare is increasingly taken into court-ordered receivership across the nation. See, e.g., Plata v. Schwarzenegger, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43796 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 3, 2005). Yet relief comes only after decades of suffering and litigation, if it comes at all.

In a famous example of protracted litigation for little reward, medical services at the Idaho State Correctional Institution were under court scrutiny for over 35 years, until the court finally deemed constitutional minimums satisfied, “but barely so.” Balla v. Idaho, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95915, at *5 (D. Idaho May 30, 2020). At no point in that case’s lengthy history were prison officials or medical providers subject to significant monetary sanctions. When the court subsequently relinquished control, the Idaho prison immediately backslid. A monetary cudgel may have shortened that case by 30 years and ended in permanent improvements.

Returning to the instant case, a private profiteer—Arizona’s NaphCare—has already been operating with impunity during a 14-year period, heedless of court oversight. Apparently, in the face of billion-dollar contracts, they’ll assume the risk of offending a judge or two.

Laudable as Judge Silver’s intentions are, perhaps the solution to Arizona’s failing prison healthcare lies not in rehabilitating a faulty system that has no will to change, but in finally holding the culprit officials and corporations financially responsible. Perhaps they will care about their money—because they certainly don’t care about the inmates’ healthcare.

by James Mancuso, Prison Journalism Project
June 9, 2026

Payton Tucker can usually be found trying to track down incarcerated people at South Idaho Correctional Institution, a minimum custody facility, or working through her list of one-on-one visits at the nearby medium custody Idaho State Correctional Institution.

She always seems to have a smile on her face, and works tirelessly to help people prepare for reentry. Tucker’s job is of great importance. U.S. Department of Justice statistics show that about 95% of people are expected to return home from state prisons at some point. But they often encounter significant barriers to finding housing, jobs or important social safety nets that will prevent them from returning to prison.

Even though almost everyone comes home, about 71% of people return to prison within five years of leaving, according to the last widespread study conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2012.

As a reentry navigator with the nonprofit Society of St. Vincent de Paul Southwest Idaho, Tucker speaks to each incarcerated person she works with to learn their needs. She helps people find job openings, housing, social services and helpful programs or classes they can access, among other things. Tucker said she takes a holistic approach to a person’s transition from prison to society.

“Nearly every person that experiences incarceration is going to be someone’s neighbor,” Tucker told me during an interview in February, at her desk in the back of the prison’s graphics shop.

A formative time

In seventh grade, Tucker was living in Hawaii and had her whole life planned out. She was going to be a doctor. Then, in high school, she saw a gruesome video of a basketball player’s shinbone compound fracture and changed her mind.

Midway through high school, Tucker and her family moved to Idaho, where she finished high school. Being a bit of a bookworm, Tucker liked to read about all the different places she could live. She decided to move to New York City for college and major in teaching.

“I was nervous until I got off the plane in New York, then I felt like I was at the place I was meant to be,” she said.

During college, Tucker joined a homeless outreach group, where she became a student leader. “That struck a chord within me,” Tucker said.

After college, Tucker returned to Idaho and began working for a Waldorf education-based school. The Waldorf methodology was built around the physiological and psychological stages of child development. She taught seventh grade in a system that had little to no technology. All her exhibits and notes were drawn on a chalkboard or on large pieces of paper to be hung on the classroom walls. They’d start the day with meditative chants together, and experience lessons in the form of storytelling and hands-on learning.

Over time, her interest in teaching waned. Tucker often felt like she was doing more paperwork than face-to-face teaching. She wanted to sit across from someone, not stare at her laptop.

A couple years ago, Tucker volunteered for Cookies for Corrections, a local program where St. Vincent de Paul volunteers pass out cookies and holiday cheer to residents during the Christmas season.

“I walked away feeling like I wanted to come back and bring light to their day,” she said.

A dream job

In 2025, just as Tucker decided to move on from teaching, the reentry navigator job with St. Vincent de Paul Southwest Idaho opened. She was hired in April of that year.

“I’m grateful to be part of the team because they are such a loving and dedicated group of people,” Tucker said. “We’re a perfect puzzle of people.”

When asked what she dislikes about the job, she said, “There are so many people who need our help yet so few resources to offer them.”

As a reentry navigator, Tucker’s job is to find out what incarcerated people need to be successful when returning to society.

Tucker leans heavily on her storytelling and teaching background when she helps people draft resumes, cover letters and find substance abuse or mental health counseling. If the person needs a ride to get to and from appointments, she’ll figure that out too.

“Every [prisoner ID] number is attached to a real live human being,” Tucker said. “I need to sit with them face-to-face and open my heart up so I can really listen to what they need, not just hear the words they say. We can then come up with a plan tailored to them, which will give them a better opportunity to be successful upon their release.”

Chris Carter, who’s detained at Idaho State Correctional Institution, said Tucker has been great to work with as he navigates his upcoming release.

“She really listens to you and will explore a bunch of different options until you find something that feels right to you,” Carter said.

‘Every story matters’

Jim McGahey, the inmate workforce development coordinator for Idaho Correctional Industries at the prison, said Tucker is good at her job because she has “developed a network of resources and understands how to utilize that network.”

“Recently she’s been working with an inmate that has done 30 years,” McGahey said. “He had no outside support. Payton crafted and built around him a network of support so that the guy is now getting out with people to pick him up, housing, job opportunities and four different phone numbers of people out in the community that can help him.”

Reentry isn’t easy. It’s important to have someone like Tucker to listen to our stories and help that transition be as seamless as possible. It’s her enthusiasm, her kind words and genuine compassion that are felt the most.

“It’s important to operate from a space in which you understand that everyone has a story and that every story matters,” Tucker said.

This article first appeared on Prison Journalism Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Over 200 people Tuesday evening attended a virtual ceremony over Zoom for the third annual Stillwater Awards. I was able to tune in with my dad, thanks to my prison’s video-visit technology. (Pops pulled up the ceremony on a second device and aimed me in its direction.)

As the screen filled up with faces of journalists, journalism educators and supporters of the finalists, I unsuccessfully searched for others viewing from prison. (Possibly they were hiding in the sea of black boxes used to protect attendees’ privacy.)

Several times during the ceremony, my video visit cut out, forcing me to log out and back into the visiting app.

Thankfully, the visit stayed connected when my submission for the Best Op-Ed category took third place!

After the announcers read the judges’ comments and a statement that I prepared, they asked if anyone in the audience wished to speak on my behalf.

Pops and I both got a little emotional as he chimed in, thanking everyone involved in producing the awards and two of my biggest supporters, who were also in the audience. (Sadly, multiple finalists received awards without anyone to speak for them.)

Towards the end of the ceremony, in what I viewed as the evening’s highlight, the staff of the Mabel Bassett Balance, incarcerated at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma, appeared on screen to receive an award for their publication. In true rock star fashion, after realizing that their sound wasn’t working, they all formed hearts with their hands and broadcast their love to the crowd.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the third annual Stillwater Awards!

Support prison artists and writers by sharing any of the following links:

“PJP Writers on Their Award-Winning Stories About Life Behind Bars.”

Homestead Happenings – “2026 STILLWATER AWARDS”

Society of Professional Journalists – “Stillwater Awards, 2025 Winners”

After years of controversy surrounding lethal injections, the state looks to automate the process of shooting people sentenced to death.

[This article was originally published at the Prison Journalism Project]

Come July, a new Idaho law will require the state to prioritize use of the firing squad when performing executions. It will become the first state in the country to make shooting prisoners condemned to death its method of choice, followed by lethal injection.

Idaho’s turn to the firing squad follows years of controversy surrounding its procurement of lethal injection chemicals and its failed 2024 execution of Thomas Creech. Creech’s execution was called off when a medical team repeatedly failed to establish the IV line needed to deliver the injection.

In an interview with a PJP editor, Ryan Mortensen, a spokesperson for the Idaho Department of Correction, said the department is evaluating options to “procure a remotely operated system” — an effort intended to reduce staff involvement in the gruesome process.

“It is a traumatic thing to experience,” Mortensen said. “The number one priority is safety and security for all involved.”

IDOC is currently reviewing how other states have implemented firing squad executions. If a remote option is not obtained, Mortensen said, “a manual process will remain necessary as a back up.”

A corrections officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he heard the eventual weapon would likely be placed on a stand and “operated by a computer to release a firing pattern.”

“It’s kind of like Call of Duty,” the officer added.

Today, only four other states are legally authorized to use the firing squad for executions. The method is rarely used. Last year, South Carolina became the first state in 15 years to execute a prisoner by firing squad when three volunteer prison employees shot rifles at a red bull’s eye over the heart of Brad Keith Sigmon. Sigmon chose the method over lethal injection.

Idaho’s death chamber is located at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, in a cellblock adjacent to the track and ball field at Idaho State Correctional Institution, where I’m incarcerated. The sound of gunfire from a nearby firing range regularly echoes throughout the compound.

The range is being used for routine training by local law enforcement, including the Idaho Department of Corrections, said Mortensen.

The occasional small eruptions are eerie.

“It’s as close to full-auto as you can get,” Mark Hopson said of the sound. (Mortensen said that IDOC personnel do not train with automatic weapons.)

In addition to South Carolina, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah have also kept the firing squad on the books. But Idaho is the only state set to prioritize it over other execution methods. South Carolina killed a total of three prisoners by firing squad last year. Prior to that, Utah was the only state in nearly 50 years to deploy its firing squad, for a total of three times.

The view from around the compound

Following Creech’s failed execution, I remember watching a press conference, with corrections officials and media witnesses, live from my unit.

“Why have a punishment that’s more or less for theatrics?” prisoner Jason Stark said during a recent interview in the dayroom. “This is a question of ethics and humanity. Not on the part of the person dying but on the people supporting the system. If taking a life is so horrible, then why are they doing it?”

When asked about use of the firing squad, Stark ranked its perceived humaneness among other methods.

“Lethal injection is better than firing squad,” he said. “Both of those are better than hanging, and better than the electric chair. But really, the most peaceful way to die is by nitrogen asphyxiation.”

Experts tend to disagree. Even some veterinarians oppose the use of nitrogen asphyxiation to euthanize animals because of its uncertain effects, according to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In line for breakfast, Frank Nicolai, who is 22 years into a sentence of life without parole, told me he’s not a proponent of the death penalty. “But I do believe that people serving fixed-life sentences should be given the option of euthanasia,” he said.

Last year, the Idaho Statesman reported that the state spent $200,000 on execution drugs that expired after going unused.

“I personally think they should just take them out to the courtyard and use a cattle knocker,” Robert Sanders said between mouthfuls of biscuits and gravy. A cattle knocker is a pneumatic device that is applied to the cranium of cattle during slaughter. “Do away with all of the commotion and save the taxpayers money.”

RJ McKinney spent 28 years on death row. He is the closest thing to an expert on the subject that I could find. I caught him walking back from a volunteer shift.

“Killing me isn’t a punishment,” he said. “That’s just getting rid of me. If you really want to punish me, keep me around for the rest of my life and let me think on what I’ve done.”

Embedded in this post are two documents. The first is a page from the log of public record requests submitted to the Idaho Department of Correction in December. The second lists the Idaho codes used to justify redactions made to the first.

Requesting the agency’s monthly log of public record requests is something I’ve done for years. I use these logs to track investigations into the agency’s operations, and also to network with other criminal justice advocates, researchers and writers. I’ve seen a lot of redactions made to these logs, but never a level of obfuscation like this.

Check out request R032917-123025, logged December 30, 2025. (I tagged it with a star to help you find it.) Note the eight strategically-placed inkblots, how they obscure the requestor’s attempt to investigate what their past-tense verbiage infers to be death of an incarcerated loved one.

Note in the second document how the agency cites Idaho Code 74-105(4)(a)(i) for each of the eight redactions made to this request.

Idaho Code 74-105(4)(a)(i):

The following records of the department of correction [are exempt from public disclosure]: 

Records of which the public interest in confidentiality, public safety, security and habilitation clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure as identified pursuant to the authority of the state board of correction under Section 20-212, Idaho Code.

(Section 20-212 gives the board of correction the power to create agency-specific policies in accordance with other state laws.)

In 2025 InvestigateWest used public record information to unearth the ongoing sexual abuse of female prisoners by Idaho corrections staff.

After the investigaiton findings were published Idaho determined that it’s no longer in the public’s interest to disclose why law enforcement officers leave their jobs.

If you are anything like me, you are curious to know the truth behind this document’s redactions. You are also probably wondering just how far Idaho will go to conceal corruption within its agencies. And lastly, you will be eager to support this family as it searches for accountability and closure.

I wish to invite the person who submitted this request to a private conversation. Please help me to reach them and share this post as you see appropriate.

Hey folks,

Remember that op-ed I published last year, “Who Should Care for the Elderly in Prison?” Well, to my surprise, a panel of professional journalists, editors and journalism educators recently selected it as a finalist for the third annual Stillwater Awards.

The Stillwater Awards are a national awards program that seeks to honor journalism excellence among writers incarcerated in the U.S.

Organized by the Society for Professional Journalists and Prison Journalism Project, this year’s awards will be distributed across 10 categories to first, second and third place.

My placement will be announced during a ceremony over Zoom on Tuesday, April 28 at 8pm Eastern.

Friends, family and fellow journalists/bloggers are welcome to join. Keep an eye on the Stillwater Awards website to learn how.

My heartfelt thanks to all for your ongoing patience and support!

“Underdog” — Alicia Keys

Idaho prisons are in the midst of a three-year pilot program that some believe could curtail abuse and promote accountability.

[Originally published by Prison Journalism Project.]

By James Mancuso

Idaho state prisons are piloting body cameras on guards, which some believe will increase safety and accountability.

Last year, the Idaho prison system instructed guards at some state prisons to start wearing body cameras, according to information I obtained through a public information request.

Dozens of people I surveyed for this story think that’s a good thing. Nearly every one of them told me they believed guards wearing cameras would make state prisons safer and hold guards more accountable.

“It’ll keep both ends honest with each other,” said Cody Fortin, an incarcerated resident, referring to prisoners and officers.

As of my writing in mid-February, body cameras have not been mandated at the prison where I’m detained, Idaho State Correctional Institution. But Fortin recently arrived here from Idaho State Correctional Center, which did utilize cameras for three months as part of a three-year pilot project.

Fortin, who spent five months in ISCC last year, told me he interacted with a corporal both before and while he wore a body camera. In their limited interactions, Fortin said the high-ranking officer seemed nicer and more helpful when wearing the camera.

“More accountability is great for everyone,” said Patrick Irving, a PJP contributor who is incarcerated with me.

What officers think

During the trial period, officers were asked to wear cameras on the upper-front torso in a way that was not obstructed by clothing, according to a policy document I obtained. The cameras were to be activated during qualifying events, including patrol on the housing tiers, use-of-force events, transporting someone of the opposite sex, or when a prisoner or fellow employee was aggressive or engaged in harassment.

I spoke to a corrections officer who had firsthand knowledge of the pilot at Idaho Maximum Security Institution, which is close to our prison. The officer, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not permitted to speak with the media, said he thought every officer would eventually be required to wear one.

Another guard told me he thinks body cameras will keep officers honest “and root out the bad officers.”

“I consider myself to be a good officer and see the body cams as a means of accountability,” he said. “Officers who are more malicious and tend to antagonize residents, rather than use the conflict resolution and de-escalation tactics we learned in training, have pushed back on the idea of body cams.”

Another officer said he was indifferent.

“If I’m told to wear one, I’ll wear it,” he said. “If not, not.”

A skeptic’s view

The department’s body camera pilot program is funded by a three-year federal grant, expected to expire in September next year, an Idaho Department of Correction’s spokesperson told a Prison Journalism Project editor in an email. IDOC has also utilized body cameras in probation and parole offices and the state’s special investigations unit for fugitive recovery.

The plan is to deploy up to 512 body cameras before the funding for the pilot concludes. At that point the department will assess the program’s outcomes and consider whether to expand or extend the use of body cameras.

Mirza Delic was the lone person I found who expressed concern about the body cameras. Delic, an incarcerated person, wishes IDOC would have pursued other funding or grant opportunities. In particular, he would like to see better shoes provided to indigent prisoners (they are given something similar to boat shoes now), upgraded gym equipment at maximum security prisons and murals painted on prison walls to make a facility feel more “like a home.”

Delic added that part of his skepticism with body cameras is that they have not proven to be a catch-all solution to stopping law enforcement overreach. He referenced the recent killings by federal officers of two different protesters in Minnesota.

Even though that was caught on video, Delic said, nothing significant seemed to happen.