Idaho’s Department of Correction, under new director Kevin Kempf, has announced a major reorganization, including shifting 15 positions to the agency’s “front lines,” including to serve as probation and parole officers. “Every position in central office was defined by the question: Does this position have 100 percent ties to our mission of public safety?” Kempf said in a news release. An extensive review showed that Corrections staffers are “frustrated with a confusing supervisory reporting structure. This is especially the case in the Education, Treatment and Reentry Division.”

“The functions in ETR provide educational services to inmates, mental health services, and reentry to offenders getting out of prison,” Kempf said. “These services are too important for us to continue in a way that is confusing to the staff that has to do this work. For this reason we are eliminating the division and embedding it inside the Prisons Division and Probation/Parole Division. This puts the decision-making process inside the area they are most impacting. This will increase communication and reduce having too many overseers and not enough ‘doers.’”  You can read the full announcement here.