As legislators look to lower the rates inmates return to prison, one option is to key in on the point of entry into the prison system.
At a recent legislative task force meeting, Pennington County prosecutors said one of their programs could be looked at to expand statewide.
Since 2020, roughly 90% of all inmates assessed at intake in the state’s prison system were found to have a substance abuse disorder. The primary focus to people with such disorders has been drug and alcohol courts.
Lara Roetzel is the Pennington County State’s Attorney and President of the SD State’s Attorney Association. She said while specialty courts do work, they face sustainability issues.
“We’re doing it on the back of the prosecutors. There’s no financial payback for the prosecutors," Roetzel said. "They’re spending all of their time and resources in specialty courts, but that’s a small fraction of people that are there.”
Instead, she said a better solution is to look at diversion programs, something Pennington County runs for first-time adult felons and offenders.
Diversion programs are court-supervised options that allow defendants to avoid a criminal record by completing certain requirements. The goal is to address behaviors that led to someone’s arrest.
Currently, the state of South Dakota already has juvenile diversion programs for first-time and low-level juvenile defenders. Counties receive a financial incentive for successful diversions. Roetzel said that should be an option for offenders of all ages.
“You could just completely copy that in an adult arena with a fiscal incentive for positive completion, and I think success would follow in the same way it’s done with juvenile diversion,” Roetzel said.
In 2024, Pennington County had over 80% of adult offenders complete the program.
Eric Whitcher is the Director of the Pennington County Public Defender’s Office. He said he agreed with Roetzel, saying the focus on incarceration needs to change.
"And of those thousands of people, you know how many got a life sentence and weren’t going to come out? Two. Just two people. Everybody else is your neighbor; they go right back to your community," Whitcher said. "And so how we think about rehabilitation should be 99% of our effort. Because about 1% don’t come back to our communities. And yet we focus so much thought, time, energy about punishment and so little time about rehabilitation."
Roetzel said the program doesn’t divert violent or chronic offenders.
