Most Idaho prison workers accused of sexually assaulting inmates go unpunished, investigation finds

In Idaho prisons, more than two dozen women say guards prey on them with little fear of consequences — and those who speak up are often punished.

Their accounts, gathered over an almost yearlong investigation, reveal the chilling reality of incarceration in a state that locks up women at the nation’s highest rate .

Since 2020, there have been at least 59 documented allegations of staff sexually abusing imprisoned women, InvestigateWest has found. That number, which totals allegations recorded by several agencies, represents the most thorough accounting of sexual abuse in Idaho women’s prisons to date. But it remains an undercount of the problem. Reporters interviewed 25 women who said they experienced sexual abuse across Idaho’s three women’s prisons, many of whom did not report the ab