A new report says if South Dakota doesn’t change its sentencing laws, the state’s prison population will increase by 30 percent in ten years.
Rep. Greg Jamison, R-Sioux Falls, sits on Gov. Larry Rhoden's Project Prison Reset, which is aimed at considering where and how big a new prison should be.
Jamison is also on a separate legislative interim committee looking at ways to reduce recidivism in the state’s corrections system.
SDPB’s Lee Strubinger spoke to Jamison, who said the new report affirms some assumptions lawmakers had made about the state’s prison needs. However, he said new population growth projections are a 'heavy takeaway.'
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GJ: It also talked about if we continue on this path with the current laws and rules that we have, we should expect to need to build another prison after this one. After 10 years or so, we should be starting the planning process to build another one. It's just kind of a lot of doom and gloom that way.
LS: Yeah, the report did kind of affirm that the state does need to build this 1,500-bed men's prison, but it basically said 10 years from now, you need to build additional facility or facilities with a similar bed count.
Do you see the state being able to take something on like that?
GJ: I would tell you at this particular moment, no.
Obviously, we've struggled to build an adequate prison for a long time because we just don't want to address it, don't want to deal with it, maybe don't want to pay for it. It's not like a new amusement park where you get something out of it, it's just a prison. So, our mindset has been reluctant already.
So, that's like a whole another level of thought and consideration on a prison. I don't believe so, no. It's a lot of reflecting of sorts that say, "We've got to change our path." Something has to change.
You know, laws need to change, people need to change something because I mean, where does it end? Otherwise, it just seems hard to imagine.
LS: You are the co-chair for the Initial Incarceration, Reentry Analysis and Comparison of Relevant States interim study committee.
Can you tell me what that group is and what you're going to be focused on?
GJ: This is really, I would say, relevant to what's happening on this prison task force discussion. There's a lot of legislators who want more rehabilitation programming done. There's a heavy interest from the legislators to figure out how to fix that revolving door, if you will.
The summer study's going to look at why people are incarcerated in the first place.
South Dakota has maybe, potentially, a higher number of crimes that are considered felonies compared to other states who have similar, you know, rules on crimes, but they're not felonies.
And then what causes them to come back? Is it failing their parole? To what level? Is it the fact that they just were never treated or given any resources to be productive when they came out? Do we fail there?
And then a lot of it is about how do we compare to other states? I've been using North Dakota is a pretty good example because they're similar in demographics. And what's different about us and them? Are they having success that we're not having? What can we learn from these other states to bring here?
And determine some ideas and potential changes that we can do, invest in here to stop the revolving door. And our hope is to come out of that summer study with some recommendations to the full legislature.
It's really very important, it's very on topic, with what we're learning from this report. That the growth factor, the growth numbers are staggering. If we don't fix that, we should just start saving for another billion-dollar new prison.
I would rather spend millions treating individuals now and preventing them from coming than just the housing of them later.
