Previous: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, Nov. 2020
WELCOME to December’s issue of First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter.
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 community.
Offender friends and families interested in networking concerns are encouraged to join the Idaho Inmate Family Support Group (IIFSG) on Facebook..
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Where hopes are never high, they haven’t far to fall… What a wonderful theme for our one-year anniversary.
This month we celebrate how our unbridled enthusiasm for civic responsibility has abided by inertia for exactly one year. That’s one full year the Dark Prince of Policy has neglected to appear and act as a force. Though, technically, it’s been a year and eight months since this editor’s very first free-floating article found the Orchard office, in handwritten copies, never to receive any formal response.
Set the path and send me in motion — it is now my pleasure to give that article a home, and, in the Festivus spirit, giftwrap for future generations yet another look at the pain we once inflicted on folks that didn’t quite fit into society’s little boxes. (Hint: We physically tried to fit them into Little Society boxes.)
So here’s looking forward to spinning laps another year, cranking the decibels a few notches higher, and hoping that one day the locals will wonder of our screams.
But first, a window to the past — where we find an artifact from the heart being written from the Hole using the stub of a pencil that never had an eraser and a few scraps of paper passed through a mousehole to find the steely hands of one uniquely distraught, retaliatory-transferred, spiritually-awakened untethered resourcefulness bringing joy to the battleground with fury and ish…
Cheers.
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RETALIATORY TRANSFER TO IDAHO (3-26-19)
Having recently organized several concerns within the Idaho inmate population at Eagle Pass Correctional Facility on the Mexican border in Texas, I faced swift acts of retaliation by the Idaho Department of Corrections and employees of The Geo Group, Inc.
On approximately February 22, 2019, I made multiple submissions of three formal complaints, with one accompanied by a large group of signatures representing a Class Action Petition. The presentation was delivered to the Texas Commission On Jail Standards, the Inspector General of Texas, the Texas State Health Department, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ACLU Texas, ACLU Idaho and Idaho media. Additional resources were expected to be added to this mailing list pending initial response.
The retaliation took form through the modifying of a preexisting disciplinary offense from November 11, 2018. In accordance with the EPCF Inmate Handbook, the violation was initially served as Creating A Disturbance 23.0, a minimum offense. The disciplinary charge wasn’t written specific to IDOC policy and failed to meed the appellate process timelines and federal guidelines for Disciplinary Due Process Procedure. Its processing has also violated IDOC Policy 218.02.01.001 (Disciplinary Procedures For Inmates) sections 18 (Transfers), 26 (Time Limits For Formal Sanctions), 30 (Appeals: Method of Administrative Review), and 33 (Audits and Data Analysis).
This disciplinary offense that has been modified is central to a complaint presented following the second group disturbance in November , which involved approximately twenty inmates. Other inmates involved were charged with the same offense listed above, as well as additional offenses of greater severity. These offenses were also not processed according to IDOC policy 318. While sanctions were served in full at the time, they were disproportionate to the offenses as classified by the EPCF Inmate Handbook and were also in excess of IDOC policy 318. This, and the massive failure to provide disciplinary due process to the entire group of inmates, forms the body of this complaint.
In addition to failing to meet the standards set by IDOC Policy 318, there is a clear violation of Texas Minimum Jail Standards 283.2 regarding facility rules and regulations. Prior to them being provided to and signed for by inmates, there was a failure to replace the current disciplinary policy in the EPCF Inmate Handbook with IDOC Policy 318 when it was presented for approval by the TWS. Per this mandate of Texas jurisdiction, regardless of the contract IDOC signed with The Geo Group, Inc., the rules provided to and signed for by the inmates are the ones the facility must adhere to.
By either standard of the rules, those that were presented to us inmates or the ones that we were expected to have innate knowledge of, disciplinary due process failed and the sanctions given were disproportionate to the rule violations. They also exceeded maximum recommendations as outlined by IDOC Policy 318, section 26.
Once my sanctions were completed, and while seeking intervention for daily human rights violations, I returned to the general population, my job, and the normal routine for over two months without incident.
It is of note that there are still offenders in segregation in Texas for offenses more severe than mine that took place during this incident. Also worth noting, while approximately two dozen offenders received violations with a severity equal to or greater than mine within a one week period, I am the only inmate returned to Idaho with enough classification points to be placed in a maximum security facility for three years. This despite a previously clean history without disciplinary action or being labelled s Security Threat Group.
What this does follow is two months of sanctions completed, three months of waiting for appeals to process, and one week of corrective actions following the first Class Action Petition I initiated for proper food service sanitation.
It is well known that I have been actively pursuing litigation. I have also recently been quoted airing the group concerns of my fellow inmates through Idaho media. Broadcasting the opinion that IDOC fails to recognize viable issues without public interest being involved is fairly common for me.
It is because of this I now face additional sanctions even more disproportionate to the rule violation while my first appeal, from months ago, has yet to be processed and returned (IDOC inmates in Texas get two appeals per IDOC Agr 018.001).
There are many of us involved in the mechanical aspects of my formal complaints. Of these, an equal number are eligible for my current situation. However, as I am alone in being the sole organized presenter of our group issues, I am alone in being removed from Texas to face a more immediate and unnecessary form of discipline. One that prevents me from continuing to organize the Class Action Petitions I initiated and have been actively representing to many different interests.
ANOTHER CONTRACT WITH GEO GROUP
The Board of Correction met again in November and we’ve since welcomed reports from members of the community that attended the meeting virtually.
Relayed of the meeting: a representative from GEO Group’s new division, GEO Cares, explained how their new contract with IDOC will allow GEO to compete with the locally-owned Rising Sun. In addition to halfway housing, a market which Rising Sun dominates in the Boise area, GEO Cares will also provide offender monitoring and classes.
IDOC’s experimenting with private reentry services and community supervision has been in the works since May. According to Tommy Simmons with the Idaho Press Tribune, that’s when IDOC began allowing 30 Probation and Parole supervisors to manage portions of their caseload using a technology called a.check, which acts as a centralized communication platform that incorporates GPS, facial recognition and document retrieval into a program located on both supervisors’ and supervisees’ phones.
Though the details of GEO Care’s service are currently unknown, the GEO Care website claims to “[deliver] comprehensive approaches to manage, rehabilitate and treat individuals inside secure settings and throughout the community” using “technology solutions [that] enable community corrections officers to manage individuals [with] GPS, mobile or remote alcohol monitoring, radio frequency, biometric voice verification, data analytics and more.”
While GEO Care is fairly new as a division, many find it odd that IDOC would reward any kind of contract to an offshoot of the very same company that recently refused to identify an outbreak of COVID among Idaho offenders housed in their care — a neglect so spectacular it may have resulted in civilian loss of life: While their ripples and body count aren’t easy to track, that GEO sent a mass transit of infected from their facility in Eagle Pass, TX, to Saguaro Correctional Center, operated by CoreCivic, who weren’t warned of the risk, strongly correlates with current outbreaks among SCC’s population and multiple COVID deaths reported among CoreCivic employees in Eloy, Arizona, where SCC is located.
It also feels irresponsible of IDOC to not intensely scrutinize what kind of rehabilitation specialist handpicks Idaho’s most well-behaved inmates to fill a facility in Texas and then offers no explanation as to why so many of the same once well-behaved inmates reported to their families substance withdrawals immediately following their transfer out of said specialist’s care. (See: November issue.)
Interestingly enough, regarding a.check, Idaho is the first state to experiment with the program, which is made by Attenti. While Attenti’s investors include the company 3M, their corporate office is located in Israel — a country that’s boasted of tracking potential COVID infections using counterterrorism software. Which makes IDOC using their offenders as a.check’s test subjects all the more curious, if not as equally despicable as continuing with GEO.
In other notes from the meeting, Director Tewalt prioritized funding a new prison over maintaining existing ones. The move was quickly questioned by the Board’s Dodds Hayden, who suggested that leaving buildings to dilapidation will only cost more in the long run.
In the age of corona, the Board’s regularly scheduled public meetings are open to anyone from the comfort of their home and community attendance is always encouraged.
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CORIZON HEALTH SERVICES CHANGES HANDS
IDOC’s health services provider, Corizon Health, was sold to Flacks Group, a global investment firm based out of Miami, in June of this year for an undisclosed sum.
Flacks Group, whose 7,500 employees manage over $2.5B in assets, specializes in purchasing poorly functioning companies and making improvements to upgrade their financial performance.
Corizon, reports roughly $800M in annual revenue and employs more than 5,000, contracted health services with 534 facilities in 2018. But that number has dwindled to 149 facilities over the last few years, while the plague of litigation resulting from issues such as short-staffing and substandard health care continues.
In the last five years alone, Corizon has faced 660 malpractice lawsuits. In a recent case in Oregon, after ignoring pleas for medical attention from a young lady suffering from substance withdrawals, they were forced to issue $10M to the account of her death.
As Matt Clarke stated in the November issue of Prison Legal News: “Corizon’s business plan [seems to be] writeoff the fines and court awards as business expenses but spend nothing to correct the problems.”
How Flacks Group plans to turn around Corizon’s current model has yet to be disclosed. Hopefully, for the sake of prisoners’ health, it has something to do with providing adequate care.
[Source: Matt Clarke, “Investment Firm Buys Corizon,” Prison Legal News, Nov. 2020.]
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COVID NEWS
Between Idaho offenders housed in- and out-of-state, approximately 15,000 tests have been conducted. Roughly 2,500 have returned positive and at least 5 offender deaths have been reported as COVID-related.
IDOC stated in November they will no longer release the names of those who die from COVID complications in order to comply with medical privacy laws.
The Department has announced random audits are taking place to ensure that protocols meant to protect the health and safety of staff, residents, and those on supervision have been implemented correctly. The Incident Command Staff is conducting the audits at facilities and office locations. They are monitoring how well information is being disseminated and how closely guidance is being followed. Offenders may be asked to participate in an audit and are encouraged by the Department to provide honest feedback.
The IIFSG reported medical help was refused for one ISCC resident having trouble breathing. After following up with a slew of emails and phonecalls, the resident was seen, transported, and placed on a ventilator.
The IIFSG also lodged a complaint on behalf of one chronic-care resident with mobility and restroom issues who wasn’t offered enough time to shower or provided with the sanitation materials needed to deal with health complications. As a high-risk individual, they are concerned about the resident’s placement in regular housing.
GEO Group’s willful neglect in not identifying the outbreak of COVID at EPCF was covered this month by the Idaho Press Tribune (Tommy Simmons).
After a mixup in testing offenders moved to Arizona, positives were housed with negatives and, as a result, the first group to arrive in Saguaro Correctional Center found themselves quarantined for almost two months.
Both Nevada’s and Hawaii’s populations have reported outbreaks at SCC, with Hawaii reporting over 500 positives following IDOC inmates’ transfer from Texas.
Those once housed at the temporary OREX extension returned to IDOC facilities in November.
CRC positives moved to ISCC’s basketball gym have complaints of the showers being offered.
In the forums, staff not wearing masks and the lack of availability for classes required to meet probation- and parole requirements continue to present as an issue.
In October, the offender population received a JPay memo which incentivized flu shots by offering a kit consisting of a mask, bar of soap, and candy bar for anyone who gets the vaccine. The incentive, promised to be rolled out during the week of November 16th, has yet to find this reporter and those surrounding him who initially requested the flu shot on their own volition.
ACLU Idaho and the law firm Shearman & Sterling have announced they are now investigating IDOC’s handling of COVID-related issues.
For real-time IDOC coronavirus updates: https://www.idoc.idaho.gov/content/careers/covid-19
View Hawaii’s Saguaro data here.
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IDOC ORDERED TO RELEASE LETHAL INJECTION RECORDS
On November 20 the Idaho Supreme Court reached a decision on Cover v. Idaho Board of Correction: IDOC must release lethal injection records, without redaction, into the care of Aliza Cover, a professor at the University of Idaho.
Cover, who initially filed suit in 2018, was represented by the ACLU following IDOC’s refusal to accommodate her public records request. In court, the Department cited concerns that they would no longer be supplied with execution drugs if their supplier’s identity were ever disclosed.
If that isn’t shady enough, earlier this year the Idaho Press article, “Idaho Faces Another Lawsuit Over Lethal Injection Secrecy,” reported the Department’s 2012 purchase of lethal injection drugs was conducted by its current director, Josh Tewalt, with a briefcase full of cash in a Tacoma, Washington, Walmart parking lot. Having heard the article discussed on the Idaho Matters radio show, FAT! requested a copy be sent in. When sent over JPay messaging, along with Rebecca Boone’s “U of I Professor Sues Idaho for Execution Records” (Spokesman Review), the article was censored for posing a security risk.
It is unclear how long IDOC was given to turn over their records, unredacted, to Professor Aliza Cover.
[Sources: KTVB News, IdahoACLU.org, Idaho Matters (radio show), AP ]
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EXHAUSTED GRIEVANCE IN SUMMARY
Category: Security
Date: 9/17/20
Location:IMSI
Grievance Number: 200000456
Responders: Nathan Roe, Nicholas Baird, Tyrel Davis
Summary: Yet another article reporting COVID’s effects in prisons was confiscated by IMSI’s Nathan Roe for encouraging violence in prison. The plaintiff grieved, “disturbed that this is becoming a pattern,” while asserting that “censoring media coverage is not okay,” and requesting that staff be retrained to “understand the difference between reporting violence and encouraging it.”
Mr. Roe, responding to the grievance as its censor, stated the media report was confiscated for describing acts of violence before confirming “there [was] no way of knowing the intent of the sender and if it [was] meant to share media coverage or to encourage the same violence in IDOC facilities.”
Though Nicholas Baird, the reviewing authority, ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, the plaintiff, dissatisfied with how components of the grievance went unanswered, was compelled to followup with an appeal:
“As of 10-21-20, this message has not been returned…Additionally, no attention was given to my request to further train Mr. Roe, who helps highlight the need for it in his initial response…Please identify the root of Nathan’s confusion, address it, and let the communication through as Nicholas Baird has so kindly instructed.”
Upon Tyrel Davis’s review of the appeal, the report in question was released by Investigations. However, the matter of Nathan Roe’s training was again not addressed at this juncture.
View the article in question here.
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TIDBITS
Keefe says they’ve begun decreasing commissary costs by 3.0%. It’s not yet clear if all items will see the reduction.
Hobby craft enthusiasts must now purchase yarn and crochet hooks from Herrschners (www.herrschners.com). Herrschners is the only approved provider for hobby craft yarn and crochet hooks.
JP5s are no longer being sold. The cost, make and features of its replacement are unknown at this time, as well as the date it’s available for purchase.
Someone has been messing with hamburger day at IMSI. The grilled sandwiches were delicious. The shawarma was not.
Confiscated mail at IMSI is still taking months to be processed. A grievance in the works includes mail items from March, September and October that have either been lost or forgotten. IMSI’s mishandling of confiscated mail was previously covered in July’s article, “Confiscated Mail System: Broke and Undelivered.”
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INMATE SERVICES AT WORK
“JPay Trouble Ticket 11-20-20”
Lysa. Oh Lysa. You have upset me dearly. Song “#1Crush” by Garbage still isn’t working. Whatever file is downloading to my player, it isn’t that of a working song. This is perhaps the fifth time I have raised this issue over the span of the last few months. To have you suggest, from your end of the world, that I am incompetent or afflicted or suffering from some form of religion that prevents me from understanding how both technology and music work is deeply offensive.
Is it not enough to be raped by opportunists? Must I also be buggered mid-traffic by fascist corporate shells? What kind of sick disease does your kind carry that makes this behavior acceptable?
Were I less of a man I’d have ended myself to avoid explaining to my wheelchair-ridden grandmother how I gambled away her medications on a song, and how the house that took my coin was none other than the same that likely extinguished Grandpa with the others. We’ve been following your footsteps for some time now–trust me: we know…
Consider it a courtesy that I lift my veil first. I am none other than the sociopath who, once slighted by his captors, started their prison’s news service and then pushed it upon every legislative member in the state, as well as every media outlet listed in the blue book–including television, radio, and the ever-dying print–to ensure that his favorite middle finger was as visible as possible to any future contenders who think their sh*t doesn’t stink.
I call it Civic Responsibility. Welcome to The Show. How does it feel to be in the paper listed as an a****** for trying to shortchange an arsonist $1.52?
The current rate of exchange, as I figure, when it comes to retribution, is 10x the original amount, to cover the inflation of prison, and then 10x that again, to make it a learnable lesson. What that boils down to is, I’m willing to spend $225 [revenge math] over the next nine years writing your executive staff letters that take half an hour apiece to make sense of, and then an unknown combination of resources to assess the security risk that I might present.
Lysa. That’s the person who sent me. That’s what I’ll say in my letters.
Lysa…
Merry Christmas, friend.
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And aggressively salutated merriment to the rest of you!
“XM@$”
— Corey Taylor
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ANIVERSARY BONUS!!!
Actually, with everything that made the report this month, I felt a little greedy asking you to revisit the article below anywhere else in this issue. So here we are: I’d be grateful if you took the time to enjoy it.
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FOLLOWING MY RETALIATORY TRANSFER TO IDAHO (8-4-19)
My inmate property arrived with the most expensive items missing, as well as legal work that was in progress at Eagle Pass Correctional Facility.
The property wasn’t compensated for following an exhaustion of the grievance process. The legal work was sent from EPCF a month after my transfer and held by the Idaho Department of Correction for an additional month before being delivered incomplete. GEO Group also neglected to forward items still arriving at EPCF, legal mail included. Grievances filed for missing property and undelivered mail were responded to with a lack of action. An appeal based on an insufficient response requested encouraging immediate safeguards to ensure I would receive all mail parcels being delivered to me at EPCF, including responses from the complaints I filed while in Texas.
Corrective action for the mail issue took effect on the day of the appeal’s decision but failed to inform me of notifications that arrived prior. IDOC took no action to compensate my missing property following the exhaustion of appeals and calls requesting explanation from my immediate family.
Meanwhile, IDOC placed limits on the letters I was sending to media, special interest groups and Idaho lawmakers. An inquiry into my inability to access the postal system was responded to with a Sgt. Trobock stating that IDOC’s property policy limits inmates to twenty envelopes a week, therefore any amount of items being received by the mail-room exceeding that number are to be denied. A grievance submitted requesting access to my First Amendment rights was then reviewed and denied by the same Sgt. Trobock.
An appeal maintaining that while Property Limits does limit an inmate to possessing twenty stamped envelopes argued that the envelopes I was attempting to process were not stamped. They were submitted naked as mail to be metered for the fifteen percent inmate savings on postal access. As there is no limit placed on envelopes to be metered, the number being sent to the mail-room was irrelevant. Sgt. Trobock misstated the policy.
The policy for property shows no restrictions on manila, blank or envelopes received. The only mention is of “stamped envelopes.” When the question was presented to an IDOC property officer, they informed that these other types of envelopes are considered paperwork and allowed to be kept in increments of three cubic feet. Additionally, IDOC’s policy on mail places no restrictions on the amount of items one can send in a week.
We now break format for a summary of events with “Irving’s Ish”.
My status as an American was reinstated despite the Appeal Review’s neglecting to view the property policy cited in the grievance. The citation, iteration and immediate reiteration of the actual policy had no effect on the adjudicator bonds formed between the two responding correctional operators. The Appeal Review supported the first reviewer’s misrepresentation of the property policy cited. I was also mis-FYI’ed in the final response while being assured that even though I’m right, I’m still wrong.
I deem the result of these exchanges acceptable: Sgt. Trobock will be metering my mail while working in the mail-room, as federally required when one works in the mail-room, regardless of the quantity being sent.
Sidenote: A letter sent to a Canadian Book Fair full of invitations to my civil dissent project was held for three weeks before being returned to me with a stamp that said only commissary purchased envelopes were allowed to go out. As the envelope sent was one of the hundred I purchased that week from the Keefe monopoly, the operating assumption is the stamps I placed on the envelope – which came in transit with my property from Texas – induced an emotional response that triggered the childhood defense mechanism known as “Nuh-uh.”
While stamps are and always will be a valid form of postal currency – so much so that IDOC only permits the possession of twenty stamped envelopes at one time, and the United States Postal System guarantees them “forever” – the stamps exposed to Texas invited such panic in Idaho that salutations to anarchist book enthusiasts in Montreal had to be offered by other means. Because I’m only allowed to exercise the First Amendment serum three grievances at a time, I put this one in my pocket for the future.
Meanwhile, of federal concern…
The grievance regarding staff retaliation was filed a week after arriving in Idaho. It focused on the timing of my transfer coinciding with my publicly airing inmate concerns and filing several formal complaints in Texas. That a disciplinary offense from four months prior was modified was significant as I was (and am still) the only inmate of a large group sharing the same offense from the same day to be reclassified. The grievance’s investigation, initial response and appeal were all processed by the staff members facing my allegations.
I answered their finding themselves not guilty of retaliation by grieving the policy that allows staff to investigate themselves for accusations of misconduct. The initial response confused this grievance as a repetitive claim of retaliation, and failed to recognize that it specifically stated an issue with policy. This point was made in an appeal and responded to by Warden Howard Yordy. Yordy denied the appeal based on my assumed confusion over whether or not IDOC employees are accountable for conspiring with GEO Group employees to infringe on Civil Rights in Texas. Confused or not, my grievance addressed the IDOC policy that allows employees to investigate themselves for misconduct.
Because Monte Hansen, Tim Higgins and P. Donaldson didn’t forward the retaliation grievance to the Special Investigations Unit for review, my grievance addressing that failure found a different audience.
Per IDOC policy, accusations of employee misconduct are to be reviewed by SIU. Tim Higgins responded to a Concern Form asking if he followed this policy by stating this information was not to be shared with an offender. When sent the same question, Investigator Nicole Fraser did inform me that Higgins didn’t follow this policy requirement while processing my retaliation grievance. Neither did Donaldson or Hansen.
The response to the grievance addressing this failure confirmed that the retaliation grievance has since been forwarded to SIU. This response was then appealed as insufficient in that it failed to address additional training for the staff charged with neglecting to follow the policy requirements.
Begins more commentary with Irving: Copies of additional grievances showing that this isn’t an isolated incident can be made available.
It is concerning that the accused has access to an investigation focused on the charges belonging to them. Increasing the likelihood of additional retaliation is as bad of a management example as doing nothing after something like this has been brought to your attention.
Thank you for watching “People in Taxpayer Funded Positions of Authority.” Is it normal to pay employees of state departments to decide whether or not their behavior is unbecoming of their position? Will I one day be allowed to decide what corrective action and penalties I should face for my own criminal actions? What a horrible example being set by the very people responsible for my rehabilitation, folks!
Tune in next time, when this mismanagement strategy inspires our antihero to organize a petition and lobby to prevent correctional employees from investigating themselves for misconduct. Will the petition be limited to Idaho? Will it address property damage, medical denials, sexual assaults, forms of violence and administrative manipulations, etc? We’ll find out after our legislative break…
It should be hard to imagine a state-paid employee anywhere in the United States having the keys to drive their own criminal investigation.
Next: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, Jan. 2021
