House Bill 1063 passed through the House side and through the Senate Judiciary Committee with very little resistance, but it hit a snag in the full Senate on Thursday, Feb. 2. There, it received solid opposition and narrowly passed with an 18 to 17 vote.
This bill authorizes an interim committee to study how to help young adults succeed after they’ve been incarcerated. Bill proponents say offenders between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely to reoffend and go back behind bars, in part because they lack the community support and good judgment to do otherwise.
HB 1063 was brought to the legislature at the request of the Chief Justice, who will appoint members of the study committee if the bill is signed by the governor.
It was introduced to the Senate by David Wheeler, who told fellow senators that all branches of government should have input.
Senator Lee Schoenbeck agreed that the problem has many sources.
“We gutted and destroyed the juvenile justice system in South Dakota in about 2015,” he said. “And in fairness, all three branches of government participated in that.”
Schoenbeck also agreed that part of the solution is for South Dakota to pay attention to young people who commit crimes. But he said that target group is under the age of 18, not over.
He said it’s not surprising that the young adult age group has a high crime rate, because they didn’t have a juvenile justice system to monitor them before adulthood.
“We’re using our public schools as our juvenile detention centers,” Schoenbeck said.
A bill proponent agreed that the juvenile justice system is broken. Senator Jim Mehlhaff said the answer starts early, when kids are in elementary school, to make sure they’re meeting their potential there.
“You have kids in the fourth grade who aren’t reading at the right level,” he said. “They get to the middle school, they’re not reading at the right level.”
But Mehlhaff said state institutions should not give up on also helping young adult offenders. “They have a lot of life ahead of them, and we need to pull them back and get them on the right track before it’s too late.”
In rebuttal, Senator David Wheeler said the Senate doesn’t have to make an either-or choice.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “We can deal with juvenile justice issues, like we did over a summer study, and we’re doing it through several bills this year, and we can talk about the issue of emerging adults.”
Wheeler said legislators have to recognize that the system now in existence may have to change to accommodate different phases of criminal justice.
