Department of Corrections pledges to rebuild sweat lodges dismantled during prison lockdown

John Hult, South Dakota Searchlight

The South Dakota Department of Corrections says it will rebuild three sweat lodges dismantled during a weekslong lockdown at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

The DOC started what it described as a “proactive” lockdown to perform a facility-wide search for contraband on Sept. 15. Last week, the agency sent a press release saying it was transitioning out of lockdown status.

Between announcing the lockdown’s beginning and its end, the DOC sent a news release with photos of alleged contraband, including sharp objects and a mobile wi-fi hotspot. The DOC sent a news release with more photos of alleged contraband Monday evening, in a release calling the lockdown a success.

The agency did not mention the sweat lodges in any of the the releases.

Late last week, an inmate named Gerald Thin Elk told South Dakota Searchlight that inmates went five days without showers at the start of the lockdown, that most of his unit remained on lockdown after its end was announced, and that the lodges had been dismantled as inmates sat in their cells.

“They tore all three of them down,” Thin Elk said.

He’d heard that a Native American medicine man was called in to make sure the lodges were removed respectfully, but “we just hope that nothing bad comes back on those people that handled those.”

DOC spokesman Michael Winder later confirmed via email that the sweat lodges were “disassembled” during the lockdown as part of the contraband search.

“The lodges will be reassembled at a later time with a medicine man to bless them,” Winder said.

Winder did not answer questions on whether the lodge teardown turned up contraband, what kind of contraband may have been suspected, if a medicine man oversaw the disassembly, or if the DOC has alternative spiritual practice options for Native American inmates.

The Monday news release on contraband found during the lockdown did not indicate where any of the seized items were found.

Right to religion

The constitutional rights of inmates inside institutions are restricted, but the right to practice one’s religion has protections under federal law. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 states that “no government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution.”

A sweat lodge (“inipi” in Lakota) is a domed, ceremonial space. Hot rocks are placed in the center, and participants pour water over them to the sound of drums and songs of prayer. Participants in the purification rite traditionally share a peace pipe, as well. The smoke and steam are said to carry prayers to the creator.

Before the lockdown, there were sweat lodges at the state penitentiary, Jameson Annex and minimum security Unit C.

Thin Elk said he frequently attended one of the three weekly sweats on the prison grounds in Sioux Falls after spending years using another lodge at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield.

“I’m one of the guys that helped the younger natives in here recenter themselves to try to put them back in touch with their traditional values and their way of life,” Thin Elk said.

The Durfee lodge, which was not affected during the lockdown, is larger than any of the three on the prison grounds in Sioux Falls, Thin Elk said. But the prison lodges are all larger and were regularly filled with more people than any lodge Thin Elk has seen outside the prison walls.

“It’s not even close,” Thin Elk said.

Thin Elk also expressed concerns about other changes to in-prison religious activity. He pointed to church services that had been offered at 6:30 p.m. Thursday evenings by Lutheran volunteers from various churches through the St. Dysmas ministry group.

The services switched to Wednesday afternoons at 1:30 p.m., then to Wednesday mornings at 8:30 a.m. over the past year. Republican former state Rep. Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, who is running for a chance to return to Pierre this year, said during an inmate family group’s meeting last month that those changes had become a hassle for volunteers like him.

Thin Elk said the changes, as well as multiple lockdowns this year, have made it harder for inmates to practice their religion.

“It’s made things very complicated in here,” Thin Elk said.

Reaction from ACLU, Corrections Commission leader

Samantha Chapman, advocacy manager of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said in a statement that religious freedom behind prison walls is a right that should not be fooled with lightly. Courts have regularly shot down policy-based denials of religious freedom in prisons.

Chapman also noted that Native Americans make up 9% of South Dakota’s population but more than a third of its inmate population. According to the DOC’s 2023 Annual Statistical Report, 38% of male inmates imprisoned on a current charge and 47% of male inmates house for parole violations are Native American.

Particularly given that disparity, Chapman noted, the significance of tearing down a place of worship for Native American inmates “cannot be overstated.”

“Oftentimes, an individual’s connections to their religious and cultural community may be their only source of hope while in prison,” Chapman wrote. “For incarcerated Native Americans, ceremonies like inipi sweats are a critical point of access to not just their spiritual practices, but also to their cultural identities.”

State Sen. Shawn Bordeaux, D-Mission, was recently elected president of the state Corrections Commission. He said he was troubled to hear about the situation, which Thin Elk reached out to him about, but was told by DOC that the lodges will be built back.

“I was kind of taken aback,” Bordeaux said. “At first, I was a little perturbed to hear that they had done this, and I thought ‘there’s got to be a more appropriate way of going through and checking things,’” Bordeaux said.

He doesn’t have a clear understanding of the DOC’s goals, he said, nor of what kinds of contraband the agency may have been searching for that would have necessitated a full takedown of the lodges. He wants to know if the lodges have ever been taken down in similar situations.

“For me, I don’t know what all the protocols are,” Bordeaux said. “I want to know what they did, how they were doing it and what they’ve done in the past.”