PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Legislature convenes Tuesday for a special session to consider legislation authorizing the Department of Corrections to move forward with a new prison complex in northeastern Sioux Falls.
The vote will be the fifth taken since the Department of Corrections hired a consultant in 2021 to study the state’s current and future prison needs, which concluded that South Dakota needed a new prison — a conclusion not all lawmakers agree with.
The Legislature passed a law in 2023 to authorize the Department of Corrections to purchase property for a proposed facility. In 2024, the Legislature approved an appropriation for site preparation and planning for a proposed facility.
Lawmakers then voted twice on a new prison in the last session, ultimately rejecting an $825 million facility in Lincoln County. A Project Prison Reset Task Force set up by Gov. Larry Rhoden came back in July with a proposal for the $650 million facility in Sioux Falls, which the Legislature will vote on Tuesday.
Supporters of the proposal say the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls is deteriorating, creating safety concerns for prison staff and inmates. The new facility will address those safety concerns, they argue, while also increasing the vocational and treatment programs to help reduce recidivism. It is, they say, the most affordable means to satisfy the state’s correctional needs.
Opponents argue that there are cheaper options than the $650 million proposed facility, which they say will end up costing taxpayers more than the stated figure, and this is the wrong time to proceed with the project.
Prison debate in 1970s: 'Great, great discussions'
South Dakotans have been debating the best approach to corrections for decades.
In 1971 and 1972, former state Sen. Bill Walsh co-chaired a prison reform committee, which was established by former Gov. Richard Kneip. Walsh told News Watch that the effort was part of a nationwide review of the prison system, and he estimates the committee met more than a dozen times.
In the course of their research, Walsh said, the committee members interviewed dozens of people, including inmates at the state penitentiary. At times, the members’ discussions, he said, were lively.
“We had heated discussions — great, great discussions — on” correctional issues, Walsh said.
The committee produced a lengthy report, which ultimately concluded that no more prisons were needed in South Dakota.
“We really needed to look at parole and pardon possibilities,” Walsh said of the committee’s conclusions.
From 300 prisoners to nearly 4,000
At the time of Kneip’s prison reform committee, Walsh said, South Dakota had a prison population at the state penitentiary — the state’s only facility at the time — of about 300 prisoners. By the mid-1980s, the state’s population had grown to more than 1,000 inmates, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. By 1995, that number had doubled. And seven years later, it surpassed 3,000 inmates.
Michael Klinski
South Dakota’s prison population topped out at nearly 4,000 in 2018. Then, following national trends, it began to decline. The average daily population in fiscal year 2024, according to the Department of Corrections, was 3,694.
The per-capita prison population figures show similar growth.
In 1978, South Dakota had approximately 80 prisoners per 100,000 residents. By 2013, the figure had jumped to 428 per 100,000 residents. Following national trends, it fell to 370 per 100,000 residents in 2022. That ranked South Dakota as the 15th highest incarceration rate in the U.S., following Florida and just behind Wyoming.
Seven new facilities for inmates since 1970
To accommodate the growth in inmate population, the state has added new facilities to its network over the past 50 years.
During the 1970s, the state opened the Yankton Minimum Center. This is separate from the Human Services Center, a psychiatric hospital, operated by the Department of Social Services.
Since the Yankton prison opening, South Dakota has built six more prison facilities.
Carson Walker
In 1984, the state built the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. In 1993, South Dakota added two more facilities — the Jameson Prison Annex and the Sioux Falls Minimum Center. Four years later, the South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre and the Pierre Minimum Center were added to the state’s prison network.
The Rapid City Minimum Center, built in 2012, was the last prison opened in the state. A second Rapid City prison, the Rapid City Correctional Facility, is currently under construction and expected to open in 2026. When operational, it will hold an additional 288 female prisoners.
All combined, the state’s current operating prisons are designed to hold 2,775 inmates, and in fiscal year 2024, the average daily population was 3,694. The only prison in South Dakota that wasn’t housing more inmates than it was originally intended to hold was the Jameson Prison Annex.
The Sioux Falls Minimum Center was at 235% of its capacity in 2024, down from 250% in 2023. The State Penitentiary was at 182% capacity, down from 186% the previous year. The state’s largest facility, the Mike Durfee prison, is designed to hold 963 inmates. It was at 113% capacity in fiscal year 2024, up from 106% the previous year. On average, the state’s facilities in fiscal year 2024 were at 154% capacity.
Muckey: 'We need to get this right'
With a $650 million price tag, there’s a lot of discussion among lawmakers about whether to build the new prison, as well as the broader issue of how best to address South Dakota’s correctional needs going forward into the future.
Rep. Erik Muckey, a Democrat from Sioux Falls, called the project the largest capital expenditure in South Dakota’s history.
“We need to get this right,” he told News Watch.
The South Dakota Freedom Caucus argues that this is the wrong time to build a new facility.
After the resignation this month of Department of Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko, who faced a number of controversies over her management of the department during her three-year tenure, Rep. Phil Jensen, a Rapid City Republican who chairs the Freedom Caucus, said there’s too much “chaos” for the state to initiate a major project.
Likewise the chief economist for the research firm Moody’s has said that South Dakota is at high risk of a recession in the coming year. The uncertainties about the facility’s price tag and high operational costs, Jensen said, suggest the state should pause and take more time to evaluate the project and hire a good secretary to oversee the department before proceeding.
The Freedom Caucus argues that existing facilities should be expanded, and the population reduced. A large portion of prisoners in South Dakota are in for minor parole violations, Jensen said, and these shouldn’t take up space in the correctional network.
“That just seems like a more common-sense approach rather than just hurrying down this path with so many unknown variables and little restraints,” Jensen said.
'Good plan,' supporters say
Supporters of building a new prison dispute that there are uncertainties in the $650 million price tag. In an op-ed, Ryan Brunner, senior policy adviser for the governor’s office, said that the legislation authorizing the funding requires a two-thirds vote, and it would be illegal for the state to exceed that cost.
“The only way this prison will cost $1 billion is if we keep kicking the can down the road,” Brunner wrote.
Brunner also stated that the governor’s task force evaluated other options, such as expanding existing facilities, and these would have increased costs by 30%-40%.
“(This) week the Legislature has a choice. This is the right plan, at the right price, and the right location. This should be an easy vote,” Brunner wrote.
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Rep. Will Mortenson, a Republican from Fort Pierre, told News Watch that once the governor explained the difference in cost from the $825 million project proposed earlier this year, as well as the rehabilitation services that will be included, that he believes the project is a “good plan.”
Venhuizen said Wasko's resignation won't impact the facility construction. The governor, he said, is doing a nationwide search, and the Senate will need to confirm any candidates Rhoden nominates.
Since the prison will take four years to build, he said, turnover in the position during the construction process was always a possibility. But the Office of State Engineer will oversee the construction of the facility, if the Legislature approves it, so oversight won't be disrupted by the secretary selection process.
"If the secretary is leaving, well, the secretary doesn't oversee the project anyway," Venhuizen said.
Common ground in the debate
The proposed new prison will hold 1,500 male prisoners. The existing state penitentiary in Sioux Falls is currently housing about 800 male prisoners. The other male facilities in the state are over capacity by about 700 prisoners.
So, the proposed facility is designed to accommodate all current male prisoners in the state penitentiary, as well as the overflow in the other existing facilities. Supporters hope this will address all the state's correctional facility needs for the foreseeable future, but that would assume no growth in South Dakota's prison population.
The need for addressing the underlying issues that land people in prison — and prevent growth in the prison population — is an area of agreement on both sides of the aisle as well as within the parties.
“The most important area to look at is clearly substance abuse treatment,” Mortenson said. “In talking to law enforcement, they will tell you 90%-plus of encounters with felonies involve substances, whether it’s drinking or drugs, in particular meth.”
Molly Wetsch
Muckey said the Democratic caucus views the prison as one component of a more comprehensive reform, which should include programmatic services, such as drug treatment and vocational training, to address the underlying problems driving recidivism. In turn, pressures on prison populations would diminish.
Venhuizen said the new prison facility will provide four times the programming space for drug treatment, mental health treatment, religious programming, job training and education.
These programs account for the increases in operational costs, which is a concern for opponents of the new facility. These costs, Venuizen said, will reduce the prison population and offer the state savings over time.
"This is one business where you don't like repeat customers," he said.
Jensen with the Freedom Caucus praised programs like Teen Challenge of the Dakotas, a faith-based treatment provider.
“They actually go into these prisons and do incredible work to get people on the right track. And then they (the inmates) have a fighting chance of surviving and thriving outside of the prison system,” Jensen said.
Walsh said that the report that former Gov. Kneip’s prison reform committee produced in the 1970s saw alternatives to incarceration as the better approach to satisfying the state’s long-term correctional needs.
“We have all kinds of courts for people to treat them in the community and not put them in the penitentiary, and to help people, once they're out of the penitentiary, to successfully re-enter civilian life. ... The basic tenet of that report was, let's not build more prisons," he said.
Venhuizen said he's optimistic Tuesday's vote will come down in favor of the new facility. The project location has support and the money is available to pay for it. While the support isn't unanimous, there's enough agreement that something needs to be done about the current state penitentiary, he said.
"All the ingredients are there to get this done. ... Maybe we should have dealt with it 10 or 20 years ago, but we didn't have the money. Maybe you think you could get another five or 10 years out of it, but now is when we have the money," he said.
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they're published. Contact statehouse investigative reporter Kevin Killough at kevin.killough@sdnewswatch.org.
