Updates

1-26-21

Dear Pen Pals,

I suspect I owe you an apology. Sometimes, the people and materials I’m exposed to rub off on me inappropriately, and inspire me to offend the few still kind enough to talk to me by assaulting their audience with inappropriate letters. I believe it was November that I was overindulging in the antics of deeply troubled lunatics, which prompted a round of meant-for-volley missives with the hopes of yielding laughs and the intent to entertain. I’m now of the impression that, entertaining, they were not. More than a matter of insufficient translation, poor decisions have been made. This can be acknowledged.

The thought that I’ve offended you troubles me deeply. Please accept my sincerest apologies.

I miss and love you much. I hope that all is well.

Short-bus emoji,
Patrick

1-5-21

Dear Ritchie,

Good morning. Here, anyway. Not to engage in casual correspondence; adjusting with coffee, cue music for Business…

“L.A. Woman”
–The Doors

I share first with you a Little Man’s victory: This morning they offered us daily use of the outdoor cages again. Shame to celebrate such a thing, isn’t it? But celebrate they will, here in RHU. It’s been maybe 8 or 9 months now since they pulled daily use of those cages. But only 24 business hours since Orchard* has had time to respond to my newsletter. Summation: All ye hope need not be abandoned.

On Sunday, Channel 2 covered the telehealth services FORE is to begin. That they didn’t echo my Fresh Take suggests their story was already brewing. Still, the timing may be significant to others looking for correlation, as playing softball against a jerseyless team is akin to suspecting that all the inhabitants of your once peaceful village may secretly be taken with the way of the savage.

Per our previous conversation, regarding enlightenment, and offering more forms of it through our correctional facilities, Director Tewalt messaged an announcement to our population expressing excitement for possible degree-granting programs with BSU. And it’s not uncommon for myself to request technical dictionaries or out-of-date textbooks from such institutions; I try to convey the communal benefit of laying them to rest in prison libraries, usually. Maybe this is something the three of us could work on together?

Also, before, when we were discussing civics, etc., I neglected to suggest that Ethics for Public Communication would go hand-in-hand. For such is needed to handle the ambitious.

Please give my love to whatever heathens the ACLU has seen fit to stock their offices with today.

Again and still,
Patrick Irving

*IDOC Admin Office

Previous: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, Dec. 2020

WELCOME to the January issue of First Amend This!

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.

If you wish to assist this effort, share the link, cut and paste, or print and send a copy to another.
…

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 “Qs for leadership,” and be sure to attend the meetings 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.
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EDITOR’S NOTE

I have a goal: Be constructive. Though a little subjective, I think it’s a good one.

And not just for me but also for management. Because insisting I continue to pirate the Channel of Communications, and stowaway on every freighter with a tide-changing wake, just to participate in a seasoned exchange, doesn’t appear all that constructive to me.

These notes could be used to boast of new dialogue. Or congratulate management on changes being made. Instead, too many communiques see no response and our platform for discourse lopsides like this:

On Being Constructive

X: When I exercise my freedom of speech to appeal to interests litigious in nature, I’m seeking intervention and acknowledgement by way of judge or jury. As the Court’s is a lawful authority, creating an opportunity to access its audience, using SOPs and the Constitution as my guide, feels like a constructive way to validate my efforts as just.

Y’s silence inferred: Critically spotlighting DOC compliance failures and constantly questioning management’s decisions isn’t exactly helpful: It motivates offender networks by charging them emotionally, and produces uniquely organized stressors that modern methods of imprisonment were never designed for. Subjectively speaking, it’s incredibly nonconstructive. …Like a talented pain that goes right for the ass.

X: Also a pain in the ass — knowing that if my journalistic endeavors hit my file as nonconstructive, I could remain lawfully detained an extra twenty-some years.

Y: In that case, if you were to stop, we wouldn’t have to deal with each other for an extra twenty-some years. That sounds to me like a win for constructive.

X: Filling my time sitting alone in silence is NOT constructive! …And too many days without a sword in the sun makes me ache for a shine any way I can get it…

[Realizing a pretty sweet stage supports his lonely podium, X cues the chorus in pulleyed delight, and with a voice on the run from Heaven’s federales, Peter Pans a Hamilton just for the kick.]

…”With each homely proof from my pen leaving proof of my life, yield not, my fingers, your vehement swinging, for you thrusteth in silence Sophoclean prose!”

See? Lopsided.

Let’s First Amend This!
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IDOC OUTSOURCING IN-STATE

GEO Reentry Services has opened four Connection and Intervention Centers throughout Idaho.

In an effort to reduce recidivism, at-risk offenders may be referred by their Probation and Parole officers to the individualized assessments and “evidence-based programming” now offered by GEO’s new private community service industry. The program begins with the non-residential intake process, where a program manager tasked with planning behavioral modifications interviews the referral prior to prescribing them any combination of job training, addiction maintenance and available cognitive programming.

The stations will work with other community programs and services to implement a corrective course of action. They will also check for COVID during intake and hold appointments over Zoom if clients are symptomatic.

IDOC plans to shell out $4.5M for their first three years with the new GEO service. According to IDOC spokesman Jeff Ray, $225K of that will be based on performance metrics, which includes reducing the baseline revocation rate.

With the exception of job training, IDOC previously offered at-risk offenders a similar therapeutic regimen to that which GEO now contracts. This reporter, once deemed at-risk while supervised on parole, was assessed by a team of public supervisors who then modified his behavior with similar evidence-based programming — all offered, managed and provided by the State. His attendance and progress were monitored closely until he returned to a state of compliance.

Which makes one wonder if IDOC is slowly losing the capacity to treat offenders themselves, or if they’ve been incentivized to outsource old services to new brands of providers — monopolistic providers, whose main concern with treatment lies behind closed doors, where it’s summed up on slides for a suit-and-tie audience in presentations with titles like “Efficacious Convalescence vs. Opportunity Cost in Revenue.”

Just whose interest is the Department now attending to: corporate shareholders outside of our community, or the victims of an at-risk population with a history of offending?

Sources: Johnathan Hogan, “GEO Reentry Services has opened their fourth Connection Intervention Center,” Post Register. Eric Grossarth, “New program developed to help convicted felons transition back into society,” Eastidahonews.com.

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POLICY PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES…

Last year IDOC announced residents in long-term restrictive-housing units (RHUs) would soon see three hours out-of-cell time daily (FAT!, Jan. ’20). Instead, the daily hour they were receiving found itself awkwardly reducing to half.

During July 2019’s board meeting, Director Tewalt announced plans for IMSI facility modifications that would support new standards outlined in the ever unattainable, unimplemented 2018 Long-term Restrictive Housing Program Policy 319.02.01.003*. The modifications — indoor rec modules, proposed and prototyped by an inmate — were to be constructed with cheap materials and inmate labor, offering a way for RHU residents to regularly access their day rooms.

Come early 2020, after breaking ground with the first of many modules, all visible progress came to a halt. Same with the chorus of excitement from hundreds of residents promised less time in the cell and more in the cage. According to RHU staffers, providing transport to the indoor rec modules was a matter of unforeseen logistical complexity: their understaffed shifts simply couldn’t find the time to rotate their pokey’s most popular patrons back and forth patiently between cell and kennel.

But with the day room only accounting for one-half of the new three-hour allotment, there was still another half to be offered outside: essentially, an extra half hour would be added to the daily hour already in practice. Logistically, this appeared to pose no problem: no extra trips were needed, nor staff required, and the rec modules outside were already in use. Nevertheless, the extra half hour was cancelled, and though a reason was given, it was hard to understand.

A grievance filed by this reporter was returned with an explanation stating that the Department was unwilling to allow the extra time outside until the indoor modifications were complete and the facility was properly staffed (FAT!, Aug. ’20). No timeframe was offered, no hope was given.

And then came COVID.

RHU shifts, once able to get everyone outside for at least an hour daily, found the only way to socially distance residents was to operate the rec cages at no more than half-capacity. So instead of directing shifts to account for the time it takes to responsibly rec a whole unit daily, IDOC divided their RHUs in half, and minimized rec for each half to every other day.

One hour. Out of the cell. Every other day. For the bulk of last year, that’s what’s been given.

In considering how the long-term restrictive housing policy was revised but never implemented back in July of ’18, there’s no telling how many more years might pass before the Department makes a respectable effort to meet the standards now sleeping on hold.

Which gives it all the feel of a marathon run that requires keeping pace with the Gears of Weak Intention.

One.

……..Hour.

…………Out of.

………………The cell.

……………………….Every.

………………………………Other.

…………………………………………Day……………….?………………–>………………………………!?!

*Unattainable yet referenced by Short-term Restrictive Housing Policy 319.02.01.001

Ref: Board of Correction Meeting, July ’19. “Exhausted Grievances in Summary, Grievance 15, IM 200000280”
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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 news-speak, 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.

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COVID NEWS

Over 17,500 tests have been administered to Idaho offenders held in three states. More than 3,300 have returned positive, and six inmate deaths have been reported as COVID-related.

For the last five months, ACLU of Idaho and the law firm Shearman & Sterling have been in close contact with IDOC while monitoring all forms of COVID-related issues. Offenders with concerns are invited to participate in the dialogue and forward their COVID experiences to:

ACLU Idaho
PO Box 1987
Boise, ID 83701

Saguaro Correctional Center has seen an explosion in cases. News outlets in Kansas and Hawaii have both covered the spike of infections. As the two states’ SCC inmate populations continue to produce a high rate of positives, IDOC’s appears not to have not undergone any more testing since they first arrived to the Arizona facility with an infected 130 cohorting among them.

Incentives were passed out this month for recipients of the flu vaccine. They consisted of one candy bar, one extra COVID mask and one translucent bar of soap. This reporter received both incentive and vaccine, and vouches for the fact that neither was deadly.

View IDOC COVID numbers here.
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REENTRY RADIO SHOW EDUCATES A DIVERSE SET OF LISTENERS

A faith-based, IDOC-friendly radio show caught our attention this month. With over 100 episodes available for streaming, Mark Renick hosts Victory Over Sin, on KBXL 94.1FM, Saturdays at 12:30 pm.

We tuned in and caught an interview with Program Manager Jeff Kirkman. Kirkman, who has served with the department for over 20 years, used the opportunity to discuss the reentry effort Free To Succeed, a community mentoring program that attempts to reach individuals 30-90 days prior to their release, and place them with a mentor in the area they plan on being released to.

The Free To Succeed program is unique in that IDOC allows individuals on supervision to offer themselves as a mentor, which in turn offers participants mentors familiar with their struggle.

Currently in need of mentors, Free To Succeed encourages those interested to contact them @ https://www.idoc.idaho.gov/content/prisons/volunteers_mentors.

Learn more about Renick and his efforts @ https://www.facebook.com/systemicchangeofidaho/ and imsihopecommunityphaseii.com.
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LEGAL RESOURCES MADE AVAILABLE ELECTRONICALLY

IDOC has finished their pilot test and will now offer legal resources electronically at facilities statewide. Starting January 11, 2021, all facility residents will have access to Lexis Nexis and other materials using their JPay tablets and kiosks.

IDOC plans to provide loaner tablets (where needed) and keep hard copy publications available through the Legal Resource Center until the loaners are made available. Hard copies will then be moved to the regular facility library. A video tutorial and a step-by-step guidebook will be found on every tablet and hard copies of the guidebook can be requested through the paralegal. WIFI options will undergo upgrades to address current issues with tablets and kiosks.

The Department expresses their excitement for these developments, and we at FAT! commend them for their effort.

The following are the authorized legal resources soon to become electronically available:

1) Idaho Code
2) Idaho Court Rules
3) Unites States Code
4) Federal Rules of Court
5) Constitutional Rights of Prisoners 9th Edition
6) Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure
7) Ballentine’s Law Dictionary
8) The Law Dictionary
9) Idaho Administrative Code: IDAPA 06
10) 06.01.01 – Rules of the Board of Correction
11) 06.01.02 – Rules of Idaho Correctional Industries
12) 06.02.01 – Rules Governing Supervision of Offenders on Probation and Parole
13) 06.02.01 – Rules Governing Release Readiness

The following publications will not be available electronically. (They will be maintained in the Legal Resource Center until facility libraries reopen.)

1) Black’s Law Dictionary
2) Spanish/English Law Dictionary
3) State and Federal Post-Conviction Remedies Last Hopes
4) Prisoners’ Self-Help Litigation Manual
5) Tucker’s Legal Directory
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SUGGESTION BOX

It is suggested that the CoreCivic contract be made publicly available prior to a unified network’s abandonment of niceties.

It is suggested that IDOC remedy the 1/2 portion situation with lunches at IMSI. After weighing the new prepackaged sandwiches, distributed every Friday, the kitchen, aware the sandwiches weigh half what they use to (and no longer match the nutritional facts that have been provided to inmates), continues to serve them, along with concerns of caloric restriction.

It is suggested that IDOC use their institutional channels to offer cognitive therapy and various classes. Many offenders wish to take classes, and many classes are required to meet criteria for parole. By using institutional channels to offer classes remotely, case managers could track participants by collecting workbooks, and possibly incentivize others into trying out classes without the the promise of tentative date. It’s suspected this would help eliminate those pesky correctional cram-sessions that force everyone to rush for the swing of the gate.

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A MESSAGE FROM REENTRY MANAGER TIM LEIGH

IDOC understands the importance of everyone leaving our custody with proper Identification. If you know an Idaho resident who needs a State of Idaho ID card and is within 90 days of release, or needs a social security card and is within 120 days of release, their case manager can provide them with instructions and applications to help obtain copies of either.

For those at NICI, the process is more of a challenge, but for those who’ve had an Idaho ID card or drivers license in the past and are in the Idaho DMV system already, a replacement ID can still be obtained.

Please refer all questions to case managers.
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INMATE SERVICES AT WORK

12-7-20

Dear Chief Page:

After filing another grievance over confiscated mail items, lost and unprocessed, I received the concern form attached* (three months after its initial submission) stapled to the mail of another inmate that appears to live at the opposite end of my facility. Judging by the withdrawal number on his parcel, I suspect it’s of financial interest.

I did inform Deputy Warden Wessels that I am in possession of another inmate’s mail, and I asked her to stop by and pick it up and take a moment with me to brainstorm a simple solution to the cascade of failures regarding mail confiscations at IMSI that I’ve so faithfully documented since March. But you know what they say: “Ignore them long enough and one day they’ll die.”

So if you could find it in your heart to see that Mr. [withheld] gets his parcel — which, again, is included, stapled to mine, as delivered to me — and send mine back to me for my records, I’m sure we’d both be delighted, possibly uncontrollably. Because life is nothing more than a series of little pleasures, so says the inscription that I’ve asked for on my tomb.

Also, while I have your attention, I never did receive the mask, bar of soap and candy bar promised to incentivize the inmate population into greeting the flu vaccine. In case you are unaware, I am quite the fan of chocolate. But who among us isn’t?

I smell a new adventure…

Warm regards,
Patrick Irving 82431

* Not shown here.
—

UPDATE: The chocolate problem was resolved on its own, and my parcel was returned with a memo from Management Assistant Kim Bausch that informed me Warden Davis, briefed of the situation, was overseeing the return of Mr. Withheld’s parcel.

We salute Kim Bausch for her dedication to service, and, Warden Davis, you did okay too.
…

Mark another month down. Thanks for sticking with us!

“Monsters Calling Home”
— Run River North

Next: First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter, Feb. 2021

I’m pretty excited about this: A Kurt Vonnegut, four-book, hardback, bible paper, ribbon marker, Library of America series that spans from 1950 to 1997. I just read a chapter from “Player Piano,” which I found at the very beginning of the series. The man is good. And weird. And his materials were actually suggested this weekend when I mentioned I was looking for something of a very specific sort.

Book Two contains a story titled “The Big Space Fuck.” And here I’ve been thinking all along that I’m too fringe to understand.

Back here, in Solitary Confinement, where sometimes an author is a person’s best friend, gestures like these are hard to measure in the way of appreciation. Especially by this guy (me), who finds himself absorbing the unconventional in some form of Darwinian process that can only be explained as like-if-Donald-Trump-banged-Alexandre-Dumas… never mind that last part. It goes a long way, that’s what I’m saying.

Therefore: With many thanks to you, Abbé Faria, all shall move forward as planned…

12-06-20

Dear Pen Pal,

What am I doing today? To begin with, I’m celebrating your good time and your feeling better and your message coming through so fast. It’s good to experience the reminders of alcohol abuse once in awhile, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m sorry your friends are struggling. It seems that everyone is struggling nowadays. I’m curious as to what kind of community evolution will result from the stress. If any. Probably in co-cultures first, like how the Mormons and Jewish and other special-interest factions do. In terms of cohesion and resourcing. Now’s a good time for others to adopt their techniques and create some cascades that see a downward scale.

…Because stress and chaos are the key to building a more robust organism, which the human collective certainly is–despite their most complete denial and struggle to the end to claim individuality…And it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to revamp several aspects of humanity, starting from the waste that trickles up from the bottom (AKA the foundation, AKA how the backs of the less fortunate are used). Or the opportunity to gravitate all currently polar idealisms towards less turbulent conquests and establish relative equilibria. (Why do I feel the need to insert things like this in conversation?)

Where was I?

Oh, yes. I don’t mean to be so incredibly affable but I have to appreciate several aspects of your message. The first, I despise texting as an acceptable form of conversation when I have access to and time for the phone. It’s the most impersonal, low-effort form of relationship maintenance in the history of mankind. And I too am the friend, or friend of the friend that commonly introduces himself as Boise’s welcoming committee to those filtering in from all walks and regions. There’s just not enough of Us around here. Along those lines–the special people that can be found in kitchens, I include them with flagellant artists. They tend to have unique perspective and appreciation for the oddest of things. Of course there are good and bad, but the good are incomparable.

All that to say, you are an amazing person to witness.

I just worked out… I guess that’s what you’d call it. And I’m making a rice bowl and considering writing a grant proposal where I propose to use my government stimulus money to grant $500-ish for filing fees to a knowledgeable lawhand capable of filing a winning claim (of their choosing) against the Idaho Department Of Correction. Leading by example for my long-term 9th Circuit project is what that’s for. I’m just not sure my network is ready for it yet. I need a trustee and someone capable of vetting the lawhand’s ability. But it’s a winning idea. If I were on the streets with my model and ambition, I’d turn 10K into a perpetual monster in a fairly respectable period of time. Or so I’m inclined to think. From here it could take a few more years. Most likely 5, if they ever allow me to reintegrate with a less troublesome population.

Yup. That’s what I’m doing today, I guess. And likely some reading and writing and exploring more ways to adequately appreciate you. Because good anchors are hard to find. Especially for folks like myself.

Off this goes. Be kind to yourself today.

Again and still,
Patrick