InvestigateWest, Invisible Institute sue Idaho for withholding police employment records

InvestigateWest and the Invisible Institute are suing Idaho State Police and the Idaho Department of Correction, alleging the agencies deliberately concealed police employment records in violation of the state’s public records law. 

The lawsuit, filed June 16 in Ada County District Court, accuses the agencies of withholding information about officers’ employment histories that previously had been disclosed to the public, including to reporters with the two news organizations. InvestigateWest used officer employment records in its October 2025 reporting that exposed alleged sexual misconduct by dozens of Idaho prison guards, many of whom were allowed to resign without facing other consequences. 

Following the reporting, both the prison system and state police’s certification division denied additional requests for updated officer employment records, saying they’d no longer release information about whether an officer retired, resigned or was fired. Idaho Gov. Brad Little, who had called for a review of the prison system’s public records procedures in response to InvestigateWest’s reporting, supported the change, with his office citing a new interpretation of an unchanged state law. 

The lawsuit, filed by Idaho attorney Deborah Ferguson on behalf of the news organizations, argues the agencies “frivolously and deliberately” chose to violate the Idaho Public Records Act in making the decision, contending that an officer’s separation information is subject to disclosure under state law. It asks the court to order the release of the records and to require the state to pay attorney fees.

“Our reporting exposed serious harm to incarcerated women — and the state’s answer was to dismantle the very records that allowed us to do that work,” said Jacob Fries, InvestigateWest’s executive director. “Suing the government is time consuming and costly, but we felt compelled to take this step because the public has a right to know who is policing their communities.”

News outlets and researchers have used officer employment data to research and track “wandering cops” — officers who commit misconduct at one agency and are able to obtain employment with another that may be unaware of the indiscretion. Before this year, Idaho’s police certification agency — a division of state police called Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) — provided that data to those who asked for it in public records requests. The Invisible Institute, a nonprofit public accountability journalism organization based in Chicago, uses the data for its National Police Index, a searchable database of certified police and correctional officers by state and where they’ve worked. 

“So-called ‘wandering officers’ have presented a significant danger to residents of every state and an impediment to lasting police accountability,” said Chaclyn Hunt, legal director of Invisible Institute. 

Last year, InvestigateWest also requested a list of Idaho correctional officers’ employment histories from the agency. Reporters then combined the information with Idaho Department of Correction data — obtained in separate requests — that showed officers who left the department and their terms of departure. Doing so helped InvestigateWest identify 37 prison workers who were accused of sexually abusing incarcerated women, at least 18 of whom resigned after the alleged misconduct or after it was reported. In October, InvestigateWest published a series of reports outlining those findings.

The award-winning series prompted Idaho lawmakers to remove a loophole in its prison sex abuse law that made it more difficult for prosecutors to bring charges against sexually abusive prison staff. Lawmakers also ordered an independent investigation of how women’s prisons in Idaho handle staff sexual abuse allegations. That investigation is ongoing. 

But when reporters from both news organizations sought updated officer employment data from Idaho POST, the agency in January denied the requests. A records clerk told Invisible Institute that state police leadership decided to “dismantle” their ability to search the employment database, and she told InvestigateWest that leadership “made the decision to disable the function.” 

The same day, POST denied an InvestigateWest request seeking the dates and reasons for separation of two former Department of Correction officers who had been accused of sexual misconduct at women’s prisons. The agency said the information was covered under a “personnel records” exemption to the public records law. The Department of Correction also redacted the reason that those two officers had separated from the agency from other records, citing the same exemption. 

The news organizations called the decision to disable access to records in order to avoid producing them “indefensible.” 

“This response is repugnant and conflicts with the very purpose of the [Public Records Act], and its mandate that government be transparent to the citizens it was created to serve,” the lawsuit states. 

InvestigateWest is also asking the court to remove unwarranted redactions from email communications and sexual misconduct incident reports, including the names of employees accused of misconduct, where the incidents occurred and summaries of the allegations.