John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight
South Dakota will need a third more prison space than it has now by 2036, and lawmakers’ choice to pass a so-called truth in sentencing bill in 2023 is a major reason why.
That’s among the takeaways from a new report on the state’s prison infrastructure that says the state would need to spend between $1.9 billion and $2.1 billion on new prisons to deal with an inmate population that’s projected to swell in spite of the state’s decreasing crime rate.
The state needs a 1,700-bed men’s prison immediately, the report from Arrington Watkins says. Even then, it says, another 1,500 beds for men will be necessary in a little more than 10 years, when it projects a prison population of more than 5,000 people.
The state signed a $729,000 contract with the Phoenix-based firm as part of “Project Prison Reset,” a work group formed by gubernatorial fiat in the face of state lawmakers’ refusal to back an $850 million, 1,500-bed men’s prison in Lincoln County in February.
Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, chairman of the work group, said the report supports the group’s first official vote last month, which was to conclude that the state does need at least one new prison.
Venhuizen was quick to point out that the $2 billion price tag would only apply if the state followed the consultant’s guidance to the letter and built two large prisons, but said the population projections lay bare the stakes of South Dakota’s current approach to criminal justice.
The work group’s job is not to address the drivers of prison population growth, he said. But he also said he’s glad the report took note of those driving forces.
The truth in sentencing bill, SB 146, requires people convicted of violent offenses to serve between 85% and 100% of their sentences, depending on the category of their crime.
As a legislator in 2023, Venhuizen voted against SB 146, and its potential to impact prison populations “was part of the reason why.”
“Those decisions are not free. You have to strike a balance there,” Venhuizen said. “If you’re sending people to prison for longer, there is a cost to that.”
The bill’s author and prime sponsor, Republican former Sen. Brent Hoffman, has a different take on the legislation’s impact on South Dakota’s correctional needs.
“The real issue isn’t SB 146, which protects the public by requiring violent criminals to serve their sentences,” said Hoffman, a supporter of term limits who served one term and opted against running for a second in 2024. “The underlying, systemic problems are recidivism rates, wasteful spending, misguided priorities and incompetence, and those problems won’t be solved by any consultant’s report or politician’s rhetoric.”
Prison population growth
Every correctional facility in South Dakota is beyond its capacity now. The South Dakota State Penitentiary was built in 1881 to house one inmate per cell, but holds twice as many.
The proposed 1,500-bed facility in Lincoln County, mired in controversy over cost and necessity and still tied up in litigation over its location, was meant to replace the penitentiary.
There are two other housing units on the penitentiary campus in Sioux Falls, however, and each of those faces its own issues with overcrowding.
The maximum-security Jameson Annex, for example, is overbooked because it houses not only maximum security inmates, but those in disciplinary segregation and those with serious mental health needs. It’s also the sorting zone for every new male inmate in the state system, where inmates stay as they’re assessed for longer-term placement.
The Sioux Falls Minimum Center, meanwhile, holds 245 men in a building designed for 96.
Even with a large but temporary drop during the COVID-19 pandemic, new admissions to Department of Corrections custody grew an average of 3.2% a year between 2015 and 2024, the report says.
That’s in spite of a crime rate in South Dakota that’s lower than the national average and on the decline. The state’s total population has gone the other direction, increasing by 0.9% a year since 2010.
Much of the long-term factors built into the new report were present for its predecessor, a report from Omaha’s DLR group that pointed to a 1,500-bed men’s facility as one of several necessary projects for the DOC.
Senate Bill 146 is a wrinkle that didn’t exist for the DLR group, some portions of which were used by Arrington Watkins in its expedited, two-month repeat assessment.
SB 146 ropes in fewer than 10% of the state’s inmates, the report notes – drug offenses are the most common charge for which South Dakotans are imprisoned – but the inability of those convicted of violent offenses to be released before serving at least 85% of their sentence will have a long-term impact on prison population growth.
“Roughly half” of the 1,246 more inmates the report anticipates South Dakota will have by 2036 is attributable to SB 146.
Parole violations are another driver of population growth, the report notes. About 45% of new admissions to the DOC came by way of parole violations in 2024, the report says, and 84% of those violations “were technical in nature rather than new criminal charges.”
Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar cautioned that technical parole violations often involve serious misbehavior, however. Technical violations include drug use, he said, as well as absconding – losing touch with a parole officer altogether.
“When those offenders are violent offenders or sex offenders this is a threat to public safety,” he said in an email to South Dakota Searchlight on Friday.
Responses colored with skepticism of price tag, conclusions
The state has already spent more than $50 million on the Lincoln County site, although a share of that money could be clawed back by selling land or reusing aspects of the now-stalled prison’s design.
The new report’s top recommendation is a 1,700-bed, Level V facility, built within 30 miles of the existing penitentiary to relieve crowding across the entirety of the men’s prison system. It also recommends demolishing the 1881 penitentiary.
“Level V” is correctional nomenclature for maximum security.
Former penitentiary warden Doug Weber wrote seven letters to lawmakers during the 2025 session urging them to say no to the 1,500-bed facility in Lincoln County, essentially a smaller version of what the new report says is necessary.
The focus on the factors driving the state’s prison population growth raises important questions, Weber told South Dakota Searchlight on Friday, but he disagrees strongly with its conclusions on how to remedy the situation.
“There’s nobody in South Dakota, in my opinion, except a handful of people, maybe in Pierre, that would be comfortable spending $2.1 billion on buildings for the Department of Corrections,” said Weber. “There are much better ways to spend money.”
Weber called a Level V facility unnecessary and too expensive in a state where the number of maximum security inmates hovers around 200.
He also bristles at the idea of knocking down the pen. Millions have been spent to maintain it in recent years, including for air conditioning less than five years ago, and Weber said it could easily serve as a minimum security facility by removing the cell doors and putting a single person in each cell.
Republican Speaker of the House Jon Hansen, a work group member and candidate for governor in 2026, said “there’s absolutely no way that I will support spending that much money on prisons.”
“If we needed to be building new facilities, we should be looking at the current location in Sioux Falls for a lot less money,” Hansen said.
Madeline Voegeli, one of the neighbors to the Lincoln County site who sued the state over the issue, said in an email to Searchlight that the group has serious doubts about the veracity of the report’s population projections.
The DLR report, completed in 2022, suggested a 1,300-bed men’s prison at a cost of around $608 million.
Now, she wrote, “we’re being told to swallow a nearly quadrupled cost of up to $2.1 billion, largely driven by SB 146 and questionable population projections.”
Voegeli accused the state of engaging in a “pattern of inflating proposals to make a billion-dollar plan” – the original Lincoln County proposal – “appear reasonable.”
Venhuizen said arguments suggesting that the Lincoln County plan’s supporters tried to tip the scale in the consultant’s report are misplaced.
“It’s not a strong position to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is being dishonest,” Venhuizen said. “If you’re doing that, you should probably examine the strength of your own arguments.”
Criminal justice reform questions
Rep. Karla Lems, a Canton Republican who’s both a work group member and an avowed opponent of the Lincoln County proposal, said Friday that she’s skeptical of the conclusions, as well.
The work group is meant to deliver its recommendations to a special legislative session in July. The state, she said, needs to spend more time thinking about reducing repeat offenses before it decides what to build.
Rep. Brian Mulder, R-Sioux Falls, is also a work group member. He said the state needs to think “innovatively” on how to reduce prison populations, and that the report is a clear sign of how necessary that is. Mulder was one of the prime sponsors of a bill to change the penalty for first- and second-offense drug ingestion from a felony to a misdemeanor during the 2025 session.
Too few prisoners are getting drug treatment, Mulder said, and he feels the state ought to consider partnering with nonprofits to extend treatment’s reach both inside the prison and outside, for parolees.
He also has questions about parole supervision practices.
“I would ask ‘what’s going on now with things like remote monitoring,’” Mulder said. “It’s a lot more effective for the state for someone so they can continue to be held accountable, but be held at home.”
Mulder supported truth in sentencing and continues to, though. He said parole reforms make more sense.
Reforms to truth in sentencing laws ought to be up for consideration, though, according to Zoë Towns, executive director of a bipartisan think tank called Fwd.Us.
Her group pushes for changes to criminal justice and immigration policy. The knock-on effects of incarceration for families and communities are heavy, Towns said, and the returns for public safety diminish significantly when inmates don’t have a chance to earn credit for good behavior – even when the people earning them committed violent offenses.
“What we should be asking is ‘how long is incapacitation actually helpful?’” Towns said. “What are the policies that are most likely to help people, when they come home, to contribute to their communities and local economies?”
Addressing behavioral health needs and addiction early on are more effective ways to deal with crime than incarceration, she said, but other strategies are even further removed from criminal justice.
Towns pointed to research from places like the Brookings Institute that suggest investments in youth education and public health offer long-term returns for public safety.
“It’s literally after school and public school programs,” Towns said. “That has a stronger homicide reduction rate than policing does. I’m not saying there’s not a role for policing. I’m saying that actually, factually, in evidence, has a stronger return than sleeping in prison.”
The next Project Prison Reset meeting is June 3 in Pierre.