RAPID CITY, S.D. – The state Department of Corrections, which has struggled to maintain workers in the past, must hire 133 staff members for the new women's prison here as it takes a new approach to drug treatment. The task should be easier thanks to pay incentives that have significantly dropped the number of open positions, according to the agency's latest annual report.
In 2022, former Gov. Kristi Noem announced an increase in salaries for correctional staff from $20 to $23.50 an hour. Starting salaries are now $25.50, a 43% increase from three years prior. Those increases were instituted under Noem and then-DOC secretary Kellie Wasko. In January 2025, Wasko told lawmakers the department also would reimplement loan repayment and scholarship programs and a $10,000 sign-on bonus for nurses.
The DOC’s 2025 fiscal report released last month shows a major improvement.
In July, there were just 16 vacant security staff positions, a four-year low for the department, compared to 55 in January 2025 and 143 in January 2024. DOC press secretary Michael Winder said Tuesday that 29 positions are currently unfilled.
Gov. Larry Rhoden’s 2026 budget allocates $13.2 million for first-year operating costs and 96 security operations, 23 health care and 20 education, programming and administrative staff members at the new Rapid City prison, which is scheduled to open this year. Those jobs would bring the DOC’s total full-time employee number to more than 1,000 statewide.
Rep. Mike Derby, a Republican from Rapid City who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Appropriations, told News Watch that salary increases for correctional staff has "been on the radar" of lawmakers for the past few years, and that the new prison should be able to find workers easier because of it.
"I'm very happy and proud of the fact that we were able to move the needle by providing additional salaries for the staff. And of course, in Rapid City, it's a brand new facility," Derby said. "It's very impressive and replaces a facility in Pierre that was long overdue. And so I'm confident that we'll get a nice qualified staff at the new salary levels that we're doing, and looking forward to getting that open."
Across the state, jails and prisons have historically struggled with building and maintaining appropriate staff numbers. Clinical staff has proved a larger challenge.
In January 2025, the DOC told lawmakers that vacancies for clinical services within the system were at 36%. Among licensed practical nurses (LPNs), who are typically responsible for patient comfort and basic needs, vacancies sat at 53% and registered nurses (RNs) were at 40%.
The South Dakota Board of Nursing said in March that 1.5% of LPNs in the state were currently working at a correctional facility.
New prison to ease overcrowding in Pierre
The site of the new Rapid City prison is just off I-90 and East North Street near Menards and other commercial businesses, a retail shopping and dining center and a housing development.
It's classified as a Level III facility, which houses "appropriately designated close classified offenders, medium classified offenders, and offenders of lower classification levels," according to the DOC's website.
The prison's Level III security status requires continuously controlled perimeters and a wall or double perimeter fencing with razor wire. Nearly 100,000 square feet of space will make up the new prison, with three housing buildings and a building dedicated entirely to mother and infant services. Clinical, behavioral health, and educational and vocational services will be offered in another building.
Winder said the prison will house "primarily minimum-custody" inmates, though one of the three housing units is designated for medium-custody offenders.
The Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, near the Nebraska border in southeastern South Dakota, is the only other Level III facility in the state, though it houses only men.
That campus, which has more than triple the capacity of the new Rapid City facility, staffs 186 full-time employees compared to Rapid City's projected 133.
The new correctional center's medium-security status will ease overcrowding at the women's prison in Pierre, Wasko said in 2023. In June, that prison was at 150% of its intended capacity. The Pierre Minimum Center, which will be decommissioned after the new facility opens, was at 167%.
"In all of my time, I’ve never seen a facility so crowded,” Wasko said about the prison in 2022.
Winder said that decisions about how inmates will be transferred to Rapid City from Pierre, and who will move, are yet to be finalized.
Kevin Killough
The women's prison was discussed in the Legislature along with the controversial new men's prison on the other side of the state but faced significantly fewer barriers. The $650 million men's prison, which will replace old buildings at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls, narrowly passed a vote in September.
Opponents of it argued, among other things, that the state needed to address problems in the DOC before embarking on a major construction project. Unless the problems are addressed, the DOC will just transfer the same problems to a new facility, undermining its benefits, they argued.
Therapeutic community model aims to provide treatment, reduce recidivism
The new women’s facility will practice a therapeutic community model for substance use disorder treatment, the first of its kind in the state.
Therapeutic community programs focus on using peer-to-peer interaction and accountability work to reduce substance abuse. That's especially necessary for female inmates in South Dakota because more than half are serving time for drug-related charges, Winder said.
"These are outstanding programs. It really does cut down on the recidivism rate. Therapeutic communities are constant programming and treatment for the offenders that are in there. It’s round-the-clock treatment," DOC secretary Nick Lamb, who replaced Wasko, said during a tour of the facility in December.
"The offenders are housed together, they work together. They hold each other accountable. It improves the recidivism rate. It improves mental health. It’s just amazing what it does.”
Kevin Killough
State Sen. Jamie Smith, a Sioux Falls Democrat who was appointed to the state’s Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force in October, said the new prison in Rapid City will provide opportunities for incarcerated women in the area to reenter the community upon release, as well as connect with family members living in the area.
"One of the things that the Rapid City facility offers is the opportunity for people to be able to get visits, which is very important for families to stay intact and very important for the person that's incarcerated," Smith said.
"Secondly, that opportunity for work release-type opportunities to get people into the community and get them working (is important). The sentences that most women in the state receive are quite short. But there needs to be opportunity (afterward)."
Derby echoed the importance of work opportunities for inmates, citing the location as a benefit.
"Instead of putting this on the outskirts or on the fringes of Rapid City, it's literally right across from Rushmore Crossing," Derby said of the popular shopping area. "I would hope that there's accommodations made and that employers will hire some of those folks that will be in there making the accommodations to get them to work."
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In addition to the therapeutic community program, the new prison will have vocational programs offered by Western Dakota Technical College in Rapid City as well as community organizations offering support for Native American inmates, Winder said.
"The educational opportunities are important, the vocational opportunities, the parenting opportunities to learn to break the cycles. So many of these things come from the cycle of poverty and abuse, neglect and trauma. If we can work on those, and breaking the cycles, it'd be great to look at South Dakota in 25, 50 years and say that we have done a better job (in terms of prisons)," Smith said.
"I think that's something that all of us need to look at, is what does the future look like for people in our state?"
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 for statewide stories. Investigative reporter Molly Wetsch is a Report for America corps member covering rural and Indigenous issues. Contact her at molly.wetsch@sdnewswatch.org.
