By David Meister
Idaho State Correctional Institution – July 2025
The Idaho State Correctional Institution (ISCI) opened in 1974. It’s the oldest prison still in operation in the state. Back then, the place was designed for around 500 people. The housing units (7–11) had small cells and tight dayrooms, but that was supposed to be balanced by a big Recreation Department. In other words, we were supposed to spend a good chunk of our day outside the housing units.
Fast forward to now: ISCI has nine housing units packed with around 1,600 inmates. That’s more than 150% of what it was designed for. And while the population grew, the out-of-unit programs didn’t keep up. If anything, they shrank—except for one thing: the ballfields.
A Field Built for More
In the late ’90s, ISCI added Units 15 and 16 to house another 480 inmates. Along with that expansion came a big ballfield—two softball diamonds, a football field, and a half-mile jogging track. They even turned an old adjacent field into a soccer field with a quarter-mile track.
These spaces were built to support the growing population and to expand intramural sports programs.
And for a long time, that’s exactly what they did.
Sports Were Structure
ISCI had organized football, soccer, and softball leagues for decades. It gave guys structure and a healthy outlet for all the time we’re stuck inside.
Then came COVID.
In June 2020, the prison went into lockdown, sports were suspended, and field access was restricted to small groups. When a new administration took over in 2021, they shut everything down—ballfields, tracks, all of it.
From Fields to Weeds
The inmate labor detail (ILD) and Rec Department workers had always taken care of the grounds. But this new admin refused to let anyone maintain them. So we watched the fields get swallowed up by weeds, rodents, and time.
In August 2024, after years of complaints, the admin finally let us mow the small ballfield and clean up the jogging tracks. But the large field? Still off-limits. Still a mess.
A Half-Million Dollar Excuse?
At a town hall in February 2025, someone finally asked the question:
Why not let the inmate workers clean up the big field so we could at least have a softball season?
The official response?
The field is “beyond repair by inmates.” It’ll stay closed for a few more years while they try to get contractor funding. The rumored cost? Between $250,000 and $500,000.
Let’s Talk About That
ISCI has dozens of inmates with landscaping experience. We’ve got rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows, a few small tractors, and a lot of people willing to work.
Most of us spend 22 hours a day in our housing units, 12 of those locked in our cells. When there’s nothing to do, people start gambling, tattooing, drinking, using drugs. That’s not because we’re lazy or reckless—it’s boredom. It’s despair. We need structure. We need purpose.
So Why Block the Fix?
Why is the administration stopping inmates from fixing a field we used to maintain ourselves?
Why chase a half-million-dollar contractor quote when we could get the job done in a few weeks—for free?
This feels less like a maintenance issue and more like a manufactured crisis—one that could end up costing Idaho taxpayers a whole lot of money they don’t need to spend.
Meanwhile, the fields stay closed.
The programs stay shut down.
And we’re left watching the weeds grow.
David Meister, the author of this post, has spent months working—by hand—on one of ISCI’s neglected ballfields with approval from administration. Using basic tools and help from a few others, he’s been mowing, clearing, and restoring the space so inmates can once again have a safe place to gather, play, and decompress. His efforts reflect what’s possible when the administration supports inmate-led rehabilitation and community building—something that costs far less than the proposed contractor budgets and offers far more in return.