South Dakota Looks To Re-Entry
South Dakota must reduce the number of released inmates who get in trouble and wind up returning to prison, state Corrections Secretary Tim Reisch said Thursday. This report from the Mitchell Daily Republic.
Nearly half of all inmates released from the state prison system are back behind bars within three years because they violate parole or commit new crimes, Reisch said. The state, city and county agencies and other organizations must provide the services that released inmates need to succeed, Reisch said at the first meeting of the Governor’s Re-entry Council, a panel appointed by Gov. Mike Rounds to cut the number of inmates who return to prison … The council’s first task is to coordinate the application for a federal grant that would finance a demonstration project aimed at providing services to released inmates in the Sioux Falls and Rapid City areas …
In South Dakota, about 30 percent of inmates released wind up returning to prison within a year, 39 percent within two years, and 45 percent within three years, according to Corrections Department records. Reisch said South Dakota’s average daily adult prison population has risen from 2,267 in 1998 to a projected 3,451 this year, an increase of nearly 1,200 in 11 years. “That’s a lot of beds. That’s a lot of mouths to feed,” the corrections secretary said. “Many of these people have been in prison before” …
Inmates must begin working on their release plans soon after they arrive in prison, Feiler said. Those parole plans must include where they will live, where they will work and how they will get treatment for problems involving drugs, alcohol, medical, mental health and sexual behavior. The state now has about 2,800 people on parole, with 36 parole agents to supervise them, Feiler said.
There is a great deal more detail in the full article.
Community Corrections, Probation and Parole, Re-Entry, South Dakota
Eastern Rapid City residents upset by a state proposal for a minimum-security prison unit are making their worries known to South Dakota legislators. And lawmakers are paying attention.
South Dakota prison officials are planning a $6 million minimum-security unit in Rapid City.
In 2005, the 24/7 sobriety program began as a pilot in Sioux Falls, Rapid City and Winner. It aimed to reduce the number of alcohol-related offenders entering jails. Now, some sheriffs say the number of local inmates has been reduced. That has led to reduced costs and more space to rent out beds for federal inmates and inmates from other counties. “It’s literally saving millions of dollars if we’re able to manage inmate numbers like this,” Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead said. “It saves the taxpayer money when those beds are filled by somebody else paying the bills” … “We’re not making any money on these prisoners,” Milstead said. “But while we’re having beds occupied by inmates paid by another agency, it allows us to do things like pay the debt service on the new jail, and to better cope with the increasing costs associated with inmate health care, prescriptions and mental health services.”