No State Oversight of Overcrowded, Understaffed, and Non-Compliant Idaho Jails
A news report by nonprofit media organization InvestigateWest on October 12, 2024, revealed something startling about Idaho: “Unlike most states,” the report said, there is no regulatory oversight of local jails—meaning “[s]heriffs and jail commanders set their own standards.”
“Annual inspections are voluntary, scheduled months ahead of time,” the report continued. Worse, “the sheriff’s association conducting the inspections is exempt from the state’s public disclosure law.”
Idaho is an outlier in these regards; in most other states, state agencies require local jails to meet specified standards and adhere to numerous rules and regulations. Instead, the Idaho Sheriffs Association (ISA), a non-governmental group that lobbies on behalf of sheriffs’ offices, conducts jail inspections and sets its own standards. The ISA doesn’t release its reports, and when jails fail inspections—as one-third did in 2023—there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure they are brought into compliance.
InvestigateWest obtained inspection reports directly from all of Idaho’s jails, which, unlike the ISA are subject to public records requests. Covering a three-year period, the reports revealed repeated incidents of jail overcrowding, understaffing, and delayed medical treatment for pretrial detainees and unsafe conditions of confinement.
Suicidal detainees went unsupervised for hours at jails in Clearwater County and Twin Falls County. The Custer County Jail had no trained guards. A detainee at the Benewah County Jail waited nearly 30 days for medical care. Still, other jails were cited for failing to file use-of-force reports, for not providing detainees with outdoor recreation, and for not having a system to identify dangerous detainees.
The ISA’s jail inspector, Ben Wolfinger, previously worked for almost three decades at the Kootenai County Jail, including two terms as Sheriff. He issues reports on compliance with voluntary standards established by the ISA. In 2024, 14 of the state’s 35 jails (40%) failed to meet the so-called “mandatory” standards while another nine (25%) did not comply with one or more recommended standards. The jails in Ada and Kootenai Counties failed inspections due to overcrowding.
By October 2024, six detainees had died in Idaho jails during the year (though jails are not required to report deaths to state officials so that tally may not be accurate). Plus, some sheriffs are reluctant to meet even the voluntary, non-enforceable ISA standards.
Benewah County Sheriff Anthony Eells took a more expansive view of the problem. “Every sheriff would be able to comply with jail standards if they had money to build a new jail,” he stated. “But if jails are like Hilton Inn, then [prisoners] won’t want to leave. And I don’t want them coming back.”
The ISA’s standards can be extremely vague, such as a requirement that jails have a “written policy and procedure to govern the management of inmates.” That level of non-specificity is deliberate, according to Michele Deitch at the University of Texas Prison and Jail Innovation Lab.
“It was never about making sure people [in jail] are being treated well or getting what they need,” she said. “That’s why the standards are really, really minimal and very vague. And they have huge gaps.”
Idaho is one of only three states “where sheriffs police themselves using voluntary jail protocols and inspections,” InvestigateWest noted. In another 31 states, jail standards and inspections are required by state law and overseen by state agencies that can impose fines for non-compliance or take other corrective actions.
“Any time you’ve got an institution that is responsible for the care and well-being of the people inside, and they’ve got total control over the lives of those people, there needs to be some kind of external mechanism that is ensuring their safety and well-being,” Deitch stated.
Absent enforceable standards and penalties for failing inspections, litigation is one of the only ways to challenge dangerous conditions in local jails. Lawsuits were filed by detainees in 2009 and 2011 against the Canyon County Jail, resulting in improvements. The Idaho chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against a jail in Caldwell, alleging unconstitutional conditions that included understaffing, mold and prisoners being forced to sleep on the floor. That case was resolved in 2016 with the jail taking remedial steps “to improve conditions and reduce crowding,” InvestigateWest reported.
But litigation is an expensive, lengthy and uncertain way to effect change, and Idahoans would be better served if local jails had enforceable standards and effective oversight by a state agency. That’s unlikely to happen, however.
“Idaho loves local control,” observed former Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney. “No [lawmaker] wants to go against the sheriffs and the sheriff’s association.”
Source: InvestigateWest
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