After prison transport ambush, Idaho corrections requests surveillance tech, transport expansion and body‑worn cameras

The Joint Finance Preparations Committee heard on Feb. 4 from the Idaho Department of Correction about supplemental and ongoing funding requests aimed at reducing contraband and improving safety after an inmate transport ambush last spring.

Noah Peterson, budget analyst for the Legislative Services Office, and Director Josh Tewalt described a package of items the agency says respond directly to vulnerabilities exposed by the incident in which three IDOC staff were shot while escorting a resident to and from an Idaho hospital.

Agency proposals presented to the committee - Advanced surveillance technology: a supplemental request for the remainder of FY2025 and an ongoing FY2026 request to install digital mail scanning, drone‑detection systems and phone‑call transcription and analysis (the “LEO” intelligence software). The agency characterized these items as aimed at reducing contraband and improving investigative capacity. For a full year, the agency presented an ongoing cost estimate of roughly $2.4 million; a one‑year partial implementation for FY2025 was…