For every adult released from the South Dakota prison system in 2021, half returned to prison by 2024. That’s according to the Department of Corrections annual report. A governor-appointed task force is working to lower that figure.
Every fiscal year, the Department of Corrections releases a statistical report on the South Dakota prison system. One of the key numbers tracked in prison systems is the recidivism rate, the rate individuals return to prison within three years of release.
South Dakota’s 2021 adult cohort had a 50% recidivism rate, the highest in at least the past 18 years according to previous reports. Of those, 15% committed a new crime. The other 35% returned to a state correctional facility due to a technical parole violation.
For Native American inmates, the recidivism rate is higher at 59%. Native Americans are overrepresented in South Dakota’s prison system in general: 35% of men 61% of women in state prisons are Native, despite accounting for just ten percent of the state’s general population.
The DOC statistical report showed that 67% of Native women in the 2021 cohort returned to prison within three years. The same figure for Native men is 43%.
The DOC report also said non-criminal violations like parole absconding were the leading causes of recidivism in general. For the over-300 individuals re-incarcerated on new sentences, drug offenses were the leading cause for both males and females.
A Legislative committee studying the issue discovered that since 2020, 90% of inmates assessed at intake were found to have a substance abuse disorder. The report showed in FY25, 91% of males and 97% of females assessed at intake in the prison system were identified as having a substance use disorder.
The state's incarceration rate increased between 2022 and 2023, to 405 individuals per 100,000, the highest since FY 2019. That means South Dakota's incarceration rate is the 11th highest in the country according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2022, the state was 15th in the nation.
Efforts to Lower Rates
While statistics can give the broader picture of the prison system’s makeup, one group says it’s nothing without action. A governor-appointed task force is looking at how the state can change rehabilitation efforts and lower recidivism.
Rep. Greg Jamison is on the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force. At the group’s Dec. 17 meeting, he said in the past he’s not considered rehabilitation a piece of what the corrections system in South Dakota does.
“In my mind when I think of the DOC, I think of them as prison walls, steel doors, lock them up, keep them there so they don’t get out,” Jamison said.
But he said these discussions are different.
“This whole other side of the programming and rehabilitation feels kind of new, at least in my mind when I think of DOC," Jamison said. "And what comes to my mind [is] paying for this going forward and planning to have it included in our budget and allocate funds for it.”
Jamison said the state Legislature should look ahead and prepare to fund efforts if they want to see a change. Those numbers aren’t available yet, but operational costs of new men’s and women’s prisons are expected once built and running.
Some say the current programming inside the prison system is good, but not working as intended. The Council of State Governments Justice Center is a third-party consultant to the task force and is helping analyze the Department of Corrections.
Sara Friedman is with the Council of State Governments Justice Center. She told the task force they aren’t starting from scratch, pointing to an inventory of programs provided by DOC.
“But most of the programs that DOC administers from that have cognitive behavioral therapy bases. So, I think you’re starting from, it seems like you’re starting from a solid foundation here. I think there are questions I have heard from all of you as like, ‘Who is actually getting these programs? How often are they administered? How many people go through them?’ And those are things that I want to help you figure out as I’m doing this programming assessment over the next few months.”
She added that lowering recidivism has more components to it than what happens inside prison walls. It also includes reentry into a community and the support system needed to be successful, along with the parole system.
Friedman contended that’s a lot for the 30-member task force to take on, but it’s necessary to reach their goals.
“You really want to reduce recidivism and increase rehabilitation. If you are laser focused only on one aspect of the system in prison programming, then you’re going to lose the big picture and you’re not going to get the recidivism reduction numbers that you want to have,” Friedman said. “Because there are more things working together to impact those long-term outcomes than just what program does a person go into in prison for reentering. And that is things in prison too like how are people supported beyond programming in prison for reentering. Like what do the kind of reentry planning and supports look like? And how are they received in the community and what’s available in the community.”
The Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force plans to study the issue throughout 2026. Members discussed recommending an additional group to study the state’s parole system more in-depth than the task force is able to.
With that, the plan is to recommend meaningful legislation the 2027 legislative session in hopes of overhauling what many deem a broken corrections system.
