Updates

Ol’ Boy Networking

7/5/19
Dear Governor Little,

I have taken the time to copy this memo from the Idaho Department of Correction’s Mr. Jack Fraser that concedes Contract Monitor Monte Hansen did, indeed, single me out for reclassification.

More concerning than staff retaliation on inmates is the Department’s failure to recognize it is now operating under the authority of both Idaho’s current Governor Brad Little and his acting Director of the IDOC, Josh Tewalt.

Moving forward, I propose ensuring all business being conducted by Idaho’s state departments is properly presented as under the purview of presently-governing officials.

A single moment of minimal effort is all that is required to confirm our respective departments are using appropriately updated letterheads. As Contract Monitor Tim Higgins has so gracefully pointed out, he is under no obligation to even acknowledge my concerns if they are presented with similar clerical errors. It is not unreasonable of me to possess expectations that equivalent standards be met by my state-paid captors.

Let us all hold each other accountable.

Best regards,
Patrick Irving 82431
Inmate Services

Eagle Pass Correctional Facility Inmate Handbook

This is the handbook I was given in January of 2019; the year EPCF was used as a contract facility to relieve prison overcrowding in Idaho; the year I was retaliated against, as a resident of this facility, for holding the Idaho Department of Correction and the GEO Group to both Texas State and federal standards.

If you are currently visiting this handbook with questions of compliance, please also take the time to view the materials I’ve linked to below; it’s recommended you note the sections of Texas Minimum Jail Standards (TMJS) mentioned throughout. As exhausted grievances are required prior to presenting complaints to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS); I can point you to “Violations of Texas Minimum Jail Standards” to show you how it works.

I must warn here that retaliation resulting from seeking compliance can come in the form of physical retribution, deprivation of basic amenities, retaliatory transfers, and destruction or loss of personal property. I was a target of them all, courtesy of EPCF–and shame on IDOC for tacitly remaining complicit.

The TMJS can be obtained for free by download from the Texas Commission of Jail Standards website, or with a fee by request:

Texas Commission of Jail Standards
PO Box 12985
Austin, TX 78711

For your reference:

1) The Battle for Dish Soap at Eagle Pass Correctional Facility
2) Violations of Texas Minimum Jail Standards (at Eagle Pass Correctional Facility)
3) Retaliatory Transfer to Idaho
4) Following My Retaliatory Transfer to Idaho
5) First Amend This!: An IDOC Newsletter (Special Alert: Coronavirus Emergency)
6) First Amend This! Sept. ’20
7) First Amend This! Oct. ’20
8) Regarding Disciplinary
9) Esoterica: Entry 20 (Dear Waymon)

Feel free to share and reach out with any questions.

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Violations of Texas Minimum Jail Standards at Eagle Pass Correctional Facility

Dear Viewer,

Thank you for the time you are taking to view these materials. I am formally submitting the following complaints to the Texas Commission On Jail Standards and seeking interest in litigating through Texas state, Idaho state, and/or the 9th Circuit. I have included additional supporting materials for context. Check back for new additions as they are processed

Lovingly Embattled,

Patrick Irving 82431
IMSI
P.O. Box 51
Boise, ID 83707

I am a million latent states attached to the constant motions of man.
From great distances we travel together.
Ashamed to be intertwined, they imagine themselves separate.
Alive and ambiguous, out-of-sight to the out-of-mind.
What the muse reflects, the Dude respects.

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Dear Idaho,

A preface is necessary. I am a bad person. An arsonist. I have terrorized innocent people. Prisons were built for people like me. I deserve every minute of my sentence. I’m not seeking sympathy or lenient considerations. I would simply like to suggest taxpayers recognize the dichotomy I wish to bring to your attention.

In February 2018, the Idaho Department of Corrections made arrangements with a Florida-based private prison company to house a large group of inmates in Texas. The facility currently housing this group is less than two miles from the Mexican border. The Idaho taxpayer money that should be funneling back to our local economy through correctional employment is now being lost to remittance through channels convenient to Mexico.

In addition to the employing of a healthy amount of a Mexican border-living population, our Idaho families are also oblivious to the beating the United States Constitution is taking. The bills from the legal battles evolving at this facility will be attached to the taxes of their hard-earned dollars.

I deserve my sentence. Implementing it should not come with the unnecessary expenses used to maintain the integrity of the Constitution that serves to protect law-abiding Americans.

The documentation I can provide about this facility’s daily operations should be public. Much of it isn’t, violating the public records act my fellow Idahoans use to help audit such questionable arrangements. I have made materials shining light on this situation available on this site.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Regards,
Patrick Irving 82431

Retaliatory Transfer Back To Idaho

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.

Irving 82431 – written March, 30, 2019