Latest news with #SouthDakotaDepartmentofCorrections
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Special legislative session scheduled for South Dakota prison vote
Cells at the South Dakota State Penitentiary. (Courtesy of South Dakota Department of Corrections) South Dakota lawmakers will gather in September to decide whether to replace the state penitentiary. On Friday, Gov. Larry Rhoden issued an executive proclamation calling a special session of the Legislature for Sept. 23. The news comes a little over a week after the governor's Project Prison Reset task force voted to endorse a 1,500-bed complex on undeveloped land in northeastern Sioux Falls. Prison task force picks Sioux Falls, caps price at $650 million for 1,500 beds The group recommended a price cap of $650 million, which is roughly the amount that has been set aside for prison construction over the past three years, potentially allowing the state to pay cash for the project rather than taking on debt. The cap is around $75 million less than consultants and work managers said would be necessary for a project of that size during the task force's final meeting on July 8, but the group decided that a higher price wouldn't earn legislative support. Spending bills require the support of two-thirds of lawmakers. The final spending push for an $825 million prison on a controversial Lincoln County site failed to clear that hurdle in February. In a letter to Rhoden requesting the special session, Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, who leads the prison task force, said compromises were necessary to find an answer that would appeal to the Legislature and ease overcrowding in the state's Department of Corrections facilities. 'The task force's unanimous vote for its recommendation demonstrates that we have found a good site for a new penitentiary and a strong path forward,' Venhuizen wrote. The new prison, if approved by lawmakers, would replace the oldest parts of the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls. That building was initially constructed in 1881, prior to statehood. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
South Dakota loses federal funds for prison rape elimination amid fears of national impact
Educational materials on sexual assault in prisons, produced by the South Dakota Department of Corrections and paid for by federal grant funding. (Photo illustration by John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) The South Dakota Department of Corrections has lost access to more than $25,000 in federal funding meant to aid in the investigation and prevention of sexual assaults in prisons and jails. The state Bureau of Finance and Management publishes a rundown, updated weekly, of dollars lost to the state through Trump administration cuts. The latest list includes a loss of $25,332 in 'strategic support' money for compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act. The act requires prisons and jails to document sexual assaults behind bars, protect victims who report incidents and ensure adequate safeguards are in place to prevent assaults. The lost money would have been a second-year award in a two-year grant. The state already received $28,419. The finance bureau's newest spreadsheet lists $23.7 million in total federal funding lost across various state agencies and projects since the start of the Trump administration. The DOC says it doesn't actually need the lost federal dollars to comply with the federal law on sexual assaults in prisons. As of this week, the agency hadn't spent all the money from the first grant award. Corrections spokesman Michael Winder told South Dakota Searchlight that the agency spent about $16,000 from the first year's funding for 'educational literature and training.' That material included wall posters instructing prisoners on how to report sexual assaults, which listed addresses for anonymous reporting and the number to dial from inmate tablets to report an assault. The department also printed 'no means no' posters, six-step staff procedure cards outlining what to do when an inmate reports a sexual assault, and pamphlets on the rape elimination act for inmates and their friends and family members. The grant was awarded to help the department comply with the law, and Winder said it now does. He said South Dakota's facilities are 'continuously audited' for compliance with the federal statute. The remaining $12,000 from 2023, he said, will be used 'to provide continued training and advancement for staff who respond, investigate, and provide continued care for victims of sexual violence within the correctional facilities.' The state penitentiary's most recent federal audit was finalized in January. The report found no deficiencies. Audits of each state correctional facility since 2019, as listed on the department's website, showed no deficiencies. In 2023, the most recent year for which data are available, there were 22 substantiated sexual assault reports in South Dakota prisons. That was 22 out of 148 investigations tied to the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The department declined to offer details on the substantiated incidents, citing exemptions in South Dakota open records law for law enforcement records or records that could endanger others, as well as a provision in the act that bars the release of information on individual incidents. That most recent annual report notes that the department 'began tracking and reporting investigations in a consistent and efficient manner' in 2023. The loss of the remaining $25,332 for South Dakota was part of the fallout from a decision by the Trump administration to cancel a host of grants related to the Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center. The cuts effectively shut down the resource center for a short period of time. Until the change, the nonprofit organization had dozens of employees, laboring under a collaborative agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Overdose deaths, gang violence draw charges in some — not all — recent prison incidents Many of them worked to review the audits required of every correctional facility in the U.S. every three years, and served as a resource to connect prisons and jails nationwide with partners who could help them do things like train officers on how to handle sexual assault reports. A California-based nonprofit called Just Detention International is among the organizations that relied on and worked with the resource center. Its mission is tied specifically to sexual assaults and harassment in correctional settings. In South Dakota, the group worked with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to build a compliant sexual assault prevention and reporting framework for a juvenile detention facility. It's also listed as a resource for victims in the most recent penitentiary audit for South Dakota. Linda McFarlane, Just Detention's executive director, told South Dakota Searchlight that some staff at the resource center have returned since April, when the grants for states and the resource center were rescinded. All the audits conducted across the U.S. since 2022 remain archived on the resource center website, but McFarlane worries the pared-down staff won't be able to review them. She's also troubled that the funding cuts removed the staff that trained investigators and connected local coordinators with resources. 'Part of the problem was that this message was sent, that PREA is no longer taken seriously,' McFarlane said. 'I think people misunderstood the defunding of the PREA Resource Center to mean the law was no longer in effect. And that is absolutely not true.' McFarlane was glad to hear that South Dakota intends to continue adhering to the law, but she worries that jailers who may have never taken the law seriously will feel empowered to ignore it. 'We heard from survivors and from currently incarcerated people that this felt like a huge slap in the face, that the government was signaling that they no longer take their safety seriously,' McFarlane said. 'And from within the corrections departments, the people who take it seriously were panicked.' The former director of the resource center, Dana Shoenberg, posted on LinkedIn that the funding cut had 'scattered' its team into different jobs around the country, but said she hopes they or others continue to work 'to fulfill PREA's promise of eliminating sexual abuse in confinement.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Drugs inside prison; Shooting arrest; Storm chance
SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) — Here are this morning's top stories with KELOLAND On the Go. The South Dakota Department of Corrections has confirmed three inmate deaths tied to drug overdoses in 2025 in Sioux Falls: one at the state penitentiary and two at the Jameson Annex next door. Jackley: Meth, fentanyl, cocaine behind SD prison walls A man was arrested in connection with a shooting six days ago. Two men and a woman were in an alleyway on 2nd Street on June 4 when an argument broke out around 9:30 a.m. The man shot the other man in the leg. The victim, 39, was taken to the hospital for his injuries. 1 arrested in connection with last week's shooting Even though flowers may not be the most popular gift for Father's Day, there are still plenty of gardening supplies for Dad. It's been said that most men don't receive flowers until their funeral. But with options, like this one complete with a fishing pole – florist Stacy Schapp hopes to change that. Flowers for Fathers Day Several rounds of showers and thunderstorms have moved across KELOLAND the past 24 hours. It looks like another warm day for Sioux Falls with highs in the lower to middle 80s. There is a 20% chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon. More scattered storms ahead this weekend in KELOLAND Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Third-party review ranks Mitchell site fourth for possible state prison, recommends initial Lincoln Co. site
Jun. 2—PIERRE — A Mitchell site ranked fourth out of six options in a third-party "refresh" look at the potential sites for a new state men's prison in South Dakota. A study from Arizona-based Arrington Watkins Architects looked at six options for a South Dakota men's correctional facility and based on a site analysis ranked the existing Lincoln County site owned by the South Dakota Department of Corrections as the top option for the Project Prison Reset panel to consider during its next meeting on Tuesday, June 3 in Pierre. The Mitchell site was described as "remote but promising" but scored 2,040 points out of a maximum 2,975 points when the sites were being sized up on a point scale from 1-to-5 and then multiplied by an importance factor out of 100 points. The Lincoln County plan scored 2,355 points, followed by a Huron plan at 2,220, a Worthing site plan at 2,045 points was third and the former Citibank site in northern Sioux Falls and Mitchell both scored at 2,040 points to tie for fourth. The most important elements for the new prison included location (within 30 miles of Sioux Falls), proximity (not located close to a major interstate, railroads and waterways), size (a minimum site of 126 to 160 acres for a full site) and available site utilities. The Lincoln County site scored a 5 in location, proximity and site size. Mitchell scored 3s in location and proximity and a 5 for size but did not score higher than a 4 in any other category. Among the positives in the Mitchell site analysis included the 160-acre land size, the generally flat land and the ability to develop a maximum of 1,728 beds. However, the nearby city lagoons for wastewater would still require a lift station, adding costs to the project, infrastructure improvements would have to be made to the site and the plan noted the site could have escape issues. "The location is 70 miles from Sioux Falls, which results in added costs for inmate transportation and support services," the study said. "It is also located just over one mile from Interstate 90, and within a mile of a railroad and the James River, which provides potential escape routes for inmates." Proposals from Aberdeen and Grant County were eliminated due to their remote distances from Sioux Falls, while five other sites closer to Sioux Falls were eliminated due to buildability issues with the land and the proposed sites. The remaining six sites were then considered for a conceptual plan and a "test fit," Arrington Watkins said. "The goal of the concept plans is to take the resulting buildable area left on each site after site analysis and represent a prison size and bed count that could utilize each site," the study said. "They are not a proposal for what should or should not be built on each site." The Lincoln County site is located about 10 miles south of Sioux Falls between Harrisburg and Canton on a 160-acre site that the state of South Dakota owns. Earlier this year, it was projected to cost $825 million to build the 1,500-bed facility. Nearby landowners to the proposed site have voiced opposition to the plan and to how the state was moving ahead with a largely secretive process to approve the prison. In February, a bill in the South Dakota Legislature to fund the remainder of the prison project failed, leading to Gov. Larry Rhoden to appoint the Project Prison Reset task force to reassess the plan. That brought on the consideration of potential new sites around the state. The state has already spent more than $60 million on the previous design and prep work for the initial Lincoln County plan. In Monday's latest look at the prison options, Arrington Watkins said the existing Lincoln County site is "10 miles from Sioux Falls, is not in proximity to major interstates, railroads, or major waterways, has the size for a full build of 1,728 beds ... is ranked high for site access, and only scored poorly for site utilities and potential additional cost during development." "The property is already owned by the DOC and is adjacent to another 160-acre parcel owned by the DOC that can be used for future expansion or support functions," the report said. "This is a strong candidate for phase one development now. ... Lincoln County was followed on the ranking system by the Huron site, which also scored well, but is very remote and directly adjacent to a major highway. Our recommendation for site selection for phase 1 development of the men's capacity plan is the Lincoln County site."
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
DOC announces release of high-risk offender
SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) — The South Dakota Department of Corrections is providing notification to law enforcement and the public about the pending release of a high risk state prison offender Glenford Old Lodge, 35, will be released from prison on Thursday, after serving the entirety of his sentence for sexual contact without consent from Hughes County, according to a news release. Because he served the entirety of his sentence, Old Lodge will not be on parole supervision. 'Masks and vests': Witnesses describe ICE in Madison There are institutional indications that Old Lodge is at high risk to re-offend, DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko said in a news release. Old Lodge is Native American, 5'10' tall, and weighs about 182 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
