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| Prison Group Eyes Rising Numbers |
| By yankton.net - RANDY DOCKENDORF |
| Published: 08/28/2012 |
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SPRINGFIELD — A committee dedicated to reforming South Dakota’s criminal justice system will learn information this week that could help prevent the building of two prisons in the next decade. The South Dakota Corrections Commission learned more about the effort during Monday’s meeting at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. Several commission members also serve on the Criminal Justice Initiative Work Group, which holds its next meeting Thursday. Gov. Dennis Daugaard, along with Supreme Court Chief Justice David Gilbertson and legislative leaders, announced the work group last month. The group has been charged with making recommendations in time for the 2013 Legislature starting in January. At Monday’s meeting in Springfield, Corrections Commission members said action must be taken to deal with skyrocketing inmate numbers. If nothing is done, South Dakota will begin running out of prison space, said State Sen. Craig Tieszen (R-Rapid City). “Five years from now, we’ll be needing a new women’s prison. Ten years from now, we’ll need a new men’s prison,” he said. “If that’s the direction we’re going, we need to make plans and start appropriating money.” However, much of Monday’s discussion focused on ways of stemming the prison population rather than building more facilities. “We need to be smarter on crime, rather than just tougher on crime,” said Tieszen, the Corrections Commission chairman. The challenge remains large, given the numbers. The state currently spends $102 million on its corrections budget annually, compared to $19 million in 1980. While their crime rates are similar, South Dakota’s incarceration rate is higher than that of neighboring states and is about double the rates of North Dakota and Minnesota. The South Dakota prison population has grown by more than 500 percent since 1980, from about 600 inmates then to more than 3,600 today. If the state does not contain that growth, it is estimated the prison population will exceed 4,500 inmates by 2022, at a cost of more than $224 million to taxpayers. Read More. |
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