If a woman incarcerated at the South Idaho Correctional Institution in Kuna has a dentist appointment, she has to walk through the men’s side of the prison to attend it. To do that, correctional staff must shut down much of the men’s side, restricting everybody’s movement to get her to her appointment. 

There are nearly 400 women and 300 men at the medium-security prison, which was originally designed for men. 

South Idaho Correctional Institution Warden Jennifer Tyvand is hoping a new women’s facility, slated to open in December 2027, will help solve many of the challenges of trying to house both men and women there. 

The new women’s prison is one of three new facilities the Idaho Department of Correction, or IDOC, plans to open within the next year. 

According to a preliminary budget request, the state agency will ask Idaho legislators in January for around $45.3 million to furnish and operate those new facilities to address a statewide shortage of prison beds. The new facilities will add nearly 1,000 new beds in the state prison system. 

The Legislature approved funding to build the facilities, but those appropriations didn’t include funding to furnish, equip and staff each of them. In 2022, lawmakers approved $112.4 million for a new women’s prison and $37.6 million for improvements to the medical annex at the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna through House Bill 791. In 2024, the Legislature appropriated $10 million for the new facility in Orofino in HB 768. 

“If we don’t open them, first of all, as a state we’d have nearly $200 million of investment that’s going to sit empty,” IDOC Director Bree Derrick said at an interview at the South Idaho Correctional Institution. “… In terms of the management of the population, we would continue to essentially limp along in the same way we have done, which means probably over-reliance on county jails and on out-of-state contract beds. And then, as it relates to the women, the women will remain here for the foreseeable future.”

The state is short about 200 beds for women inmates, which means some are sent to county jails or out of state, according to the agency budget request. Idaho’s entire prison population is about 10,000 inmates, according to state data, but the total prison capacity sits at just over 8,200. 

The agency, along with all other state agencies, submitted its budget request to the governor’s budget staff at the Division of Financial Management earlier this month. In January, Gov. Brad Little will unveil his own state budget proposal, and legislators will decide how to appropriate funds during the 2027 legislative session. 

IDOC to request $32.9M to open new women’s prison 

Idaho incarcerates women at the highest rate in the nation, according to the most recent available data from the U.S. Department of Justice. The state began housing women in the Kuna men’s prison in 2012 because the Kuna women’s prison was full. 

“We struggle to provide them the same types of opportunities that we do for our male population,” Tyvand said. 

The women at the facility don’t have access to the ballfields on their side and have more limited classroom and work-training space, she said. The women also live in open areas with bunk beds placed close together, including in the area meant to be the least restrictive. Tyvand said the structure isn’t as “incentivized” as it should be. 

The new facility will be designed to give some women more personal space, for sleeping and showering, she said.  

There’s a waitlist to live in the less restrictive area of the prison, called the pre-release center, or PRC, which houses people who qualify to leave the facility for work, Tyvand said. When there isn’t space, women who qualify for that area get placed in the medium-custody North Dorm, where outside hours are more restricted and there are fewer opportunities to use the classrooms or the chapel and volunteering area. 

“I still provide volunteer and religious services to ladies that live in North Dorm,” Tyvand said. “They just do it on a scheduled basis in the chapel at PRC. So, a fence divides them, but we gate them through to engage in those activities. But it would be nice to have space where that isn’t the case.” 

The agency plans to request $20.5 million in ongoing expenses to run the new facility, which includes staff, food service, maintenance, and utilities. Its request also includes $12.4 million in one-time expenses in the current fiscal year to purchase furniture, technology, appliances, clothing and other items for the facility. The new facility will include 560 beds. 

Idaho officials are unsure of root causes for high incarceration rate of women, but drug charges are likely factor

On Monday, nearly 1,400 women were incarcerated in Idaho state prisons. Idaho’s neighbor Utah incarcerated about 400 women in its state prisons on that day, Derrick said. 

“It’s a pretty stark difference in a state that I think has a lot of similarities in terms of our approach to the work, our feelings about safety,” she said. 

In 2023, 152 women out of every 100,000 in Idaho were in prison, according to the Department of Justice. In Utah, 28 out of every 100,000 women were incarcerated. 

Around 80% of the women incarcerated in Idaho are serving time for drug or other non-violent convictions, Derrick said. Tyvand, the prison warden, said women inmates tend to serve longer sentences than women incarcerated in other states as well. 

In Idaho, conviction of possession of controlled substances usually carries a felony sentence. Possession over a certain amount is considered trafficking, such as one pound or more of marijuana, and includes a mandatory minimum sentence. 

In Utah, first-time offenses of possession of a controlled substance is usually a misdemeanor. Possessing very large quantities of drugs, such as 100 pounds or more of marijuana, is a second-degree felony with minimum prison time. 

Derrick said there are a lot of factors that the agency hasn’t been able to dig into yet, but there’s a lot of interest in solving the root cause of the high incarceration rate. 

“The one thing I can say is, I don’t think we have distinctly worse women living in Idaho, or just running around committing a whole bunch of crimes,” she said. “I don’t think anyone thinks that. And so, for us, figuring out what are the alternatives? Where are there opportunities? I think those are all part of a future discussion.” 

Utah also incarcerates men at a lower rate, with 340 out of 100,000 males of all ages in prison in 2023. In Idaho, 823 out of 100,000 males of any age were sentenced prisoners. 

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New unit at men’s prison to accommodate ‘increasingly aging and infirm’ population

The agency’s request includes $4.2 million in ongoing operating funding and $3.7 million in one-time money to open a new unit at the Idaho State Correctional Institute in Kuna. 

The new unit will include 280 beds, of which 132 would be designed to meet needs of “an increasingly aging and infirm population,” according to the agency budget request.

“IDOC does not currently have a unit designed for people with ambulatory problems but is seeing an increase in this population,” the request said. 

The bottom floor of the new facility would allow for “full ADA compliance,” and for storage of medical equipment, the request said. The site is also close to the prison’s existing medical unit. 

The budget request would fund technology, furniture, appliances, staffing, and other items to operate the facility. 

The new prison unit is expected to open April 2027. 

New Orofino prison facility would add 112 new low-custody beds 

The budget request includes a total of about $4.5 million to open a new unit at the Idaho Correctional Institution in Orofino. The 112-bed facility would be for men in minimum custody who are eligible to seek employment in the community, the request said. 

The state lacks space for men eligible for services meant to improve their transition back to the community, such as work release or training programs, the request said. 

If the lawmakers choose not to provide funding for the staffing, furniture and other expenses to operate the new facility, eligible “minimum custody residents would continue to be housed in either county jails or out-of-state facilities beds and without the transitional release benefits” of similar facilities, the request said. 

With the opening of the new facilities, the agency is expecting to lower its costs related to contracts with county jails and out-of-state prisons to house state inmates, Derrick said. An expected increase in work-release opportunities for inmates is also expected to generate revenue, because the state collects 30% of inmates’ earnings. 

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