In a letter to Gov. Little, @now4idaho.bsky.social condemned the state’s “shameful” failure to protect women from sexual abuse by prison staff & called for an independent investigation & "immediate" action - prompted by @investigatewest.bsky.social reporting. www.investigatewest.org/idaho-leader...

Whew. That's a lot. We know. We're here to help you make sense of it and understand what's being done to fix it. Send questions. Or tips. Or your own experience. And stay tuned for updates that we'll post at investigatewest.org/guarded-by-p... Thanks for reading! /end

Listen as Idaho State Police detectives interview Sgt. Brian Klingensmith about former inmate’s allegation that he raped her. The 9-minute, unedited audio of the interview in Story 4 was obtained by InvestigateWest through a public records request. investigatewest.org/case-closed-... 11/

We found 37 prison workers accused in the last decade of sexual misconduct toward incarcerated women. Of those, 18 resigned. 8 were fired. 3 were criminally charged. And 1 received a prison sentence for abuse, which was dismissed after he completed alternative sentencing. 8/

The Ada County Sheriff’s Office heavily redacted a report containing the allegations. It claimed the omitted information “would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and that it was "unclear" how info about a state worker at a taxpayer-funded prison served the public interest. 6/

In the state that incarcerates women at the nation's highest rate, @wilsonc.bsky.social and I uncovered rampant sexual abuse by Idaho women's prison guards. After a year of reporting, we published 6 stories examining the system that failed to protect them. 🧵 1/

Most sexual abuse allegations against women's prison staff are never referred to law enforcement, and the ones that are rarely result in criminal charges. Quiroz is the only women's prison guard in the last 10 years to receive a prison sentence for raping an inmate. And he never served that time.

While police were investigating, they discovered that just weeks before Quiroz raped her, he used his access to prison records to locate and contact a second woman who had recently been released from prison for a sexual encounter. Ada County prosecutors charged Quiroz with felony rape.

🧵 Idaho prison guard Ricardo Quiroz was transporting a woman under his supervision from the hospital where she had a medical procedure back to prison when, she says, he raped her in the back of the van. For 2 years, she was too scared to report what happened. In 2020, she finally did...