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On The Friday, December 28, 2018 Edition Of Idaho Matters

SAMANTHA WRIGHT / BOISE STATE PUBLIC RADIO
The South Boise Women's Correctional Center south of Boise.
  • Idaho Matters presents an encore broadcast of our four-part look into the the fastest-growing demographic in Idaho prisons: women.

- Back in August, we had a chance to visit the South Boise Women’s Correctional Center south of Boise. We wanted to take a look at what life was like in a women’s prison and we heard about several very unique programs that the prison offers the women. We also heard some very compelling stories about what brought the women behind bars.
- The South Boise Women's Correctional Center has some very unique programs designed to help the women there learn job skills and other qualities like leadership and responsibility. One of those is the Whiskers Program, a collaboration with the Idaho Humane Society where inmates take care of sick and neglected cats and kittens.

- The South Boise Women's Correctional Center is a tight cluster of buildings south of Boise. Behind the prison stands a long, covered tent-like structure. Inside are thousands of rows of tiny green plants. Gemma Gaudette walked along the rows of sagebrush with warden Noel Barlow-Hust who says the plants are grown by inmates and help restore the landscape after wildland fires.

- There were 311 women prisoners at the South Boise Women's Correctional Center on the day we visited in August. It's a minimum security facility. We wanted to find out more about a women's prison, and about the woman who runs it. On a windy day outside the prison, Noel Barlow-Hust opened up about why she became warden and why women are different from men behind bars. 

Originally aired October 25, 2018

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