Law Enforcement
Behave Yourself Or No Candy!
February 4, 2019 
Its no secret the Idaho Correctional facility south of Boise has had more than its share of problems in the recent past.
In an attempt to encourage the assorted thieves, rapists, killers, and other assorted felons to behave themselves, prison administrators sent a memo to inmates and staff February fourth, announcing a behavior plan straight from grandmothers across the country.
If inmates are not written up for rule violations for a period of 90 days they will be given a chocolate bar. Not just ANY chocolate bar, but a MR. GOODBAR!
Distribution will be quarterly. Fourth quarter of 2018 should be in time for Valentines Day.
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© 2019 Boise Guardian. 
Feb 5, 2019, 5:29 am
What really needs to be considered is the re-establishment of “good time”, which virtually every other state offers as incentive to the incarcerated.
Benefits both the overcrowding issue and provides incentive for the men and women to not just “do their time” – but “do their time” positively.
Feb 5, 2019, 8:57 am
I agree with Bob. Time off sentences can be a motivator to some but not all inmates. Those in for life without hope of parole is another story. Incarceration is time that goes by very slowly. A day can oftentimes seem like a week on the inside.
Feb 5, 2019, 9:26 am
Considering that in Idaho a person can get a long, long time at the pen for holding a small amount of weed – even if it’s for medical purposes – I find your description of those spending time at the pen a bit over stated. Candy bars….. well, better than a kick in the shin! I agree that it’s overcrowded but that’s because our state gets money for holding people there. Money easier gotten by legalizing weed and letting people from other states spend their money here…. gas, food, lodging…
Feb 5, 2019, 10:19 am
Well… college football players apparently will work for stickers on their helmets.
Feb 5, 2019, 10:21 am
They do this in the Drug Court and The Veterans Court. It’s humiliating and demeaning to the recipients. They give them a miniature Mr. Goodbar if they behaved week to week. They don’t choose to behave because they want a candy bar. Those that choose to behave are those that understand the rules and want to be successful within their program.
Idaho needs to rethink this “elementary school get a gold star for doing what you are suppose to do” attitude. How would you feel if your boss gave you a Mr Goodbar every week you showed up on time??
Feb 5, 2019, 12:41 pm
How about highlighting some positives regarding Idaho Prisons, like the partnership with the Boise Bicycle Project. From the BBP Annual Report.
“In 2016 the Boise Bicycle Project began an outside-the-box partnership with the Idaho Department of Corrections to help inmates earn a bicycle for future transportation needs by fixing bicycles for BBP’s youth programs.
The program began at the South Women’s Correctional Center, expanded to the East Women’s Center in 2018, and is expected to grow into one of the Men’s facilities in 2019.
The impact created for everyone this program reaches (inmates, kids, refugees, staff) is undeniable and has received national attention.
2018 Inmates Graduated: 27
Kids Bikes Fixed: 381”
Feb 5, 2019, 12:52 pm
As a former state employee, I recall the year the legislature refused us a pay raise. To appease us, the Governor sent out “We appreciate you” ribbons to pin on our lapel. Now that was a real moral booster.
Feb 5, 2019, 1:05 pm
There’s a bit of cruel irony in “Mr. Goodbar” being the candy of choice at the “Graybar Hotel.”
JayJay: How would you feel if your boss gave you a Mr Goodbar every week you showed up on time??
A: Probably better than not getting ANYTHING! (Getting a paycheck has been an incentive to show up on time for quite a few weeks, however.)
Feb 5, 2019, 2:11 pm
Monkey see. Monkey do.
Let’s recall the Boise Police Chief offered pizzas to the cop getting the most DUI arrests.
A reward for doing what you are supposed to do…
A Mr. Goodbar, donuts, or a pizza- it’s the same.
EDITOR NOTE–I believe the pizza deal was just among the officers. Chiefs I have known would not condone “quotas” of any kind. Point of the story was the idea of getting cons to behave for a chocolate bar.
Feb 6, 2019, 12:40 am
The chocolate ration will be increased from 30 grams to 25 grams criminal, aren’t you lucky!
Go USA! We’re #1(highest incarceration rate per capita in the world)
Strange that we’re somehow qualified to bring freedom to the rest of the world…
Feb 6, 2019, 8:03 am
Not sure where 3rdGenBoise is getting his or her information, but it just simply isn’t true that anyone is spending a great deal of time incarcerated here in the Gem State for “holding a small amount of weed”. In Idaho, simple possession of marijuana in personal use amounts is a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than a year in jail. (And getting any jail time at all in such cases would be unusual). To become a felony, the amount has to be substantially larger – definitely not what one would consider personal use or medicinal in nature. And even in those cases, the very maximum incarceration – which would be an unheard of sentence these days – is five years. In fact, the only substantial sentences that involve marijuana in Idaho and that result in any sort of significant prison time are in cases where there are other, serious crimes involved or where the defendant is convicted of trafficking, which is a world apart than simple possession.
Feb 7, 2019, 1:02 pm
It is not well understtod it costs nearly $100/day to incarcerate peope. ADA county acknowledges it costs them $97.50/day. All thi cost comes back on property taxpayers at the county level. We need ti figure out what models of incarceration are used in other western countries to keep their incarceration levels lower than what is the reality in the USA. Canyon County is going to try and pass a $190million bond election this May. It will likely fail and Comm. Tom Dale has admitted they will then seek Judicial Conformation to build a new jail. I can now visualize Comm. Tom out shopping for the right judge to get this monster built.
Feb 8, 2019, 9:22 am
Behave yourself or no sex change operations!
https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/state-ordered-to-pay-for-surgery-for-transgender-prison-inmate/article_c43c405e-1e9b-57f2-9829-f774e12737d0.html
Feb 8, 2019, 2:38 pm
Thanks to Eamonn Harter for posting what was going to post on this. This TG freak is demanding way more than a chocolate bar. This is what liberalism has wrought.
Feb 10, 2019, 5:29 am
Paul – Incarceration rates soared after Nixon started the War on Drugs. Legalize all drugs. Leave people alone unless they are creating a disturbance.
Feb 11, 2019, 10:50 am
Empty the Jails…..apparently, you’ve never encountered someone high on PCP, bath salts, or any one of a number of other drugs that have effects on humans that you can’t even imagine. Making such substances – which have no safe amounts or safe uses whatsoever – would be sheer insanity. There is no freedom argument when it comes to drugs such as the ones I’m speaking of. It’s a serious public safety issue through and through and that trumps “hey, leave me alone….I’m not bothering anyone” all day long.
Feb 11, 2019, 4:40 pm
We basically have a three-tier jail system (plus a couple more if including the nut house).
Pie in the sky idea: The big change I’d like to make is to have very limited space for the worst of the worst. The prisoners who absolutely did it and are serving long or life terms for violent crimes. If they have no chance of overturning the conviction etc., I see no reason to keep them alive. Money savings potential is large if we can get the lawyers to stop fighting for these maggots.
More doable idea: Change the laws and punishment of the relatively harmless stuff where we are harshly disrupting and incarcerating someone who was mostly law abiding and paying taxes before getting jailed for having some of grandma’s pills. (Numerous other examples of insignificant crimes blown all out of proportion by the for-profit machine.) This person needs forced treatment but typically not expensive lockup. We fix them and they keep paying taxes is the plan. No, we are not effectively doing this now.
We do have a broken system overall. Laws, Police, Courts, Jails. It seems to be a for profit system. We are rapidly becoming a police state where neighbors are claiming a man exercising on the sidewalk looks suspicious and the police will shake him down based on the simple say so of the paranoid citizen. Cops are still not being held to account for errors and violations of rights. Not to mention the ignorance of the population about the ever more intrusive surveillance by our own governments and police. How many new laws did they pass today?
The supersized for-profit jail is every Sheriff’s dream of a revenue stream just for his department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/
EDITOR NOTE–What about the candy bar?
Feb 12, 2019, 11:03 am
We need to lock up the people we are afraid of, not those who just pissed us off.