For this multi-part investigative series, InvestigateWest reporters held countless interviews with currently or formerly incarcerated women and conducted an exhaustive analysis of Idaho Department of Correction employee records, internal communications, sexual misconduct complaints, and inmate disciplinary forms. The investigation reveals systemic problems and a toxic culture in Idaho’s prisons, which tolerates or ignores sexual assault of female inmates by prison workers. It uncovers dozens of previously hidden incidents of sexual assault and identifies dozens of guards or other prison workers who got away with it. And it examines how Idaho prison leadership has punished inmates and whistleblowers for trying to speak up, while at the same time protecting those accused of sexual abuse without conducting a proper investigation.
