Idaho

Idaho’s prisons are run by the Idaho Department of Correction (Idaho DOC) — the agency spells it “Correction,” singular. It refers to a person in its custody as a resident, identified by an IDOC number, and people are found through the Resident/Client Search on the agency’s website (which also covers people on probation or parole).

This section details twelve facilities — ten state prisons and two out-of-state prisons. Six of the state prisons sit together in the South Boise prison complex in Kuna: the Idaho State Correctional Institution (ISCI), which houses the men’s Reception and Diagnostic Unit; the Idaho State Correctional Center (ISCC), the largest; the Idaho Maximum Security Institution (IMSI); the South Idaho Correctional Institution (SICI), which holds both men and women; the South Boise Women’s Correctional Center (SBWCC); and the Mountain View Transformation Center (MVTC). The other four are the Idaho Correctional Institution-Orofino (ICIO), the North Idaho Correctional Institution (NICI) in Cottonwood, the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center (PWCC), and the St. Anthony Work Camp (SAWC). Women are currently held at PWCC, SBWCC, and SICI.

A defining feature of Idaho is severe overcrowding, which has pushed about 700 men out of state. Idaho’s prisons are over capacity, and the state holds roughly 700 men on the U.S. mainland at two prisons in Arizona operated by the private company CoreCivic: the Saguaro Correctional Center (Eloy) and the Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex (Florence), where transfers began in 2026. A person found on the Idaho locator may physically be in Arizona, where CoreCivic’s visiting, mail, phone, and money procedures apply; those two prisons are covered on their own pages. Idaho frames the transfers as temporary and has also contracted county-jail beds to manage the population.

Where a newly sentenced person enters depends on sex. Men are received at the Reception and Diagnostic Unit at the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna. Women are received at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center.

Idaho keeps the death penalty. Men under a death sentence and the execution chamber are at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution; Idaho’s only woman under a death sentence is held at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center. Under a 2025 law, the firing squad becomes Idaho’s primary execution method effective July 1, 2026, with lethal injection as the backup; executions have been paused since 2025 while the chamber is retrofitted.

A few features shape how families stay in touch. Incoming personal mail goes directly to the facility — Idaho does not use an off-site mail-scanning vendor — addressed to the resident at the institution’s mailing address (most Kuna prisons use Boise PO boxes). Phone service runs through ICSolutions and tablets through ViaPath, while money is deposited through a separate vendor, Access Corrections. Health care is provided under contract by Centurion. Independent oversight is limited — Idaho has no corrections ombudsman; concerns run through the department’s internal Office of Constituent Services. A new women’s prison is under construction in Kuna and is expected to open around 2027; it is noted on the relevant pages but is not yet built.

Use the guides below for the statewide rules, or go straight to a specific facility.