Keys, Light Switches and Minimal Supervision: How One Prison Prepares Individuals for Release
Date:  03-01-2025

Idaho hopes a more human-centered approach to incarceration
From Idaho Statesmen:

BOISE, Idaho — Johnny Valenciano has been incarcerated since he was 18 years old. Now 32, he spent the better part of that time in the state’s highest security prison: the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

For six of those years, he lived in a cell by himself in solitary confinement.

Valenciano told the Idaho Statesman things shifted for him when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He was locked down in his cell and given 15 minutes reprieves every 36 hours which he used to quickly shower and call family.

“That was a breaking point for me,” he said in an in-person interview. “I just didn’t want to live that way no more.” Continue reading >>>