The recreation department used to be the center of life at Idaho State Correctional Institution. People could learn to paint or woodwork in the hobby shop. Musicians could jam with their bands in the music room. And athletes could compete in intramural sports leagues.
The department fostered a healthy community by keeping incarcerated people engaged in activities that supported their physical and mental health.
My early experiences with the recreation department embodied this mission. Soon after my arrival in 2016, I was hired to create murals for a facility-wide beautification project. Eventually my paintings of songbirds and deer were all over the yard and even in the central offices of the Idaho Department of Corrections.
The paintings were a point of pride for the department. I was part of their tours and touted as credible proof of the rehabilitation happening inside state prisons.
But that was before COVID-19 swept through the prison in 2020, halting programming and community life. The reopening efforts that followed were delayed and haphazard. When I began to advocate for their robust return, my status as a celebrated member of the corrections community ended too.
A new system of isolation
The COVID rupture was compounded by the 2021 arrival of a new administration, which had to immediately manage the acute staff shortages and health complications. In an interview, Ryan Mortensen, an IDOC spokesperson, told a Prison Journalism Project editor that staffing issues and COVID led to the decline of programming.
“Those adjustments are common in correctional settings where you have to cut back and restrict a little bit,” Mortensen said.
Recreation was hit particularly hard. Throughout 2022, the department was frequently closed and understaffed. When I approached a recreation sergeant about doing a sports tournament or league, like we used to do, he said, “We’re not doing any of that shit.”
Without a robust recreation department, conditions at ISCI worsened. People were increasingly confined in close quarters, sometimes for over 20 hours a day. Tempers flared, fights became more frequent and goodwill between staff and prisoners dissolved.
At the same time, valuable institutional knowledge was lost, making it harder to maintain operations that were allowed to reopen. Frequent staff turnover meant the officers assigned to recreation didn’t know the bleachers needed to be maintained, the courts resurfaced or the dozens of other necessities tied to running a recreation center.
One step forward, two steps back
In July 2022, I took a clerk position in hopes that I could advocate for and help return the department to its pre-COVID standard. Most importantly, I used my new position and expertise to advocate for a return to pre-COVID programming.
For a while, it worked. While there was still no support for opening the hobby shop, intramural sports or music room, I was permitted to coordinate a total of 13 holiday tournaments in 2024. This was a fraction of the 60 to 70 events we’d once hosted annually, but it felt like a win. And there were other hopeful signs. After ISCI administration changed again in mid-2025, the new warden and two new deputy wardens spoke publicly about restoring programs.
But eventually progress stalled. Tournaments were hobbled with new restrictions. The hobby shop was officially terminated and demolished. The music room was converted to storage space.
Then, at a town hall forum in July 2025, recreation leadership announced intramural sports would not be returning.
This was a blow. I knew we could do more with the resources we had at hand if we were only allowed to. But, once programming was cut, I found there was little institutional dedication to returning to the levels available pre-COVID, the kind that had fostered a healthier, more vibrant community life.
A retaliatory transfer?
Myself and others began making noise. Dozens of people incarcerated at ISCI submitted concern forms, to no avail. I filed requests with the administration, sent letters to IDOC officials, and took the fight public by starting a blog at MeisterArchive.com. “Programs produce peace, isolation breeds chaos,” I wrote on a department request form to ISCI’s new deputy warden of security.
By advocating so strongly for recreation, I knew I was making myself a target for ISCI administrators who then seemed to prefer lockdowns to programs.
Sure enough, in the summer of 2025 I received two separate warnings from staff to stop making waves. Then, in a move I strongly believe was intended to undermine my advocacy, I was suddenly put on a 26-hour bus transport from Idaho to a private prison in Arizona on Sept. 9, 2025.
In the interview with a PJP editor, Mortensen said the department is currently operating “at a little over capacity,” and thus relying on various local and out-of-state facilities to house prisoners. He said the transfer was based on institutional needs, security classification and my sentence length. In part because I am serving a life-without-parole sentence, Mortensen said “it made sense for that move to take place.”
I had been put on the transfer list before, but I had always been removed due to my specialized position working on the murals or in recreation.
This time, though, interventions from recreation staff did nothing. The administration seemed determined that the transfer would go ahead.
Mortensen denied that my position would be grounds for a transfer stay.
The price of change
From my remote cell in Arizona, I continued to protest. I posted on social media, sent letters to Idaho officials about the declining conditions at ISCI and mailed leaflets encouraging incarcerated people at ISCI to press for reforms.
On Feb. 5, 2026, I received a communication from the ISCI warden, assuring me that increased access to gym programming was a priority for prison administration.
As of April, true to his word, the warden widened recreation access. The music room was rebuilt; it’s slated to open soon. An intramural basketball season is already in progress.
This is a great sign, but the price I paid feels like a warning. In the past, ISCI administrators worked with incarcerated people to support and build their programs. Now it seems you have to choose between staying silent or speaking out as conditions worsen, knowing it might mean a one-way bus ride to Arizona.
