South Dakota’s new head of corrections told appropriators they’re setting new goals for the department.
At the Department of Corrections hearing with the Joint Appropriations Committee, new secretary Nick Lamb told appropriators the department is creating three "WIGs," or Wildly Important Goals.
He outlined them, saying the department’s goal is to reduce recidivism, or the rate at which an offender returns to prison in three years, by 5%. To be successful, that number would need to be 45% for adults and 27% for juveniles.
Lamb said he thinks the department should see those numbers come down.
“So, one think about the recidivism rate, you’re going to see a substantial decrease. Right now it’s kind of high, or it’s very high, but a lot of that has to do with the absconders," Lamb said. "There’s a three-year lag on the recidivism rate, and a lot of different programming was started in 2024, so over probably end-of-year 2026 through 2028, you’re going to see, especially with the new female facility starting, you will see a substantial drop in the recidivism rate.”
Lamb also said as the recidivism cohorts get farther from the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll naturally begin to see a downward trend.
The second goal is to reduce staff turnover by 15%, down to 21%. Lamb told the committee he has ideas for that one already.
“Corrections is not a job for everybody. It really isn’t. So, we’re trying to figure out a way to, maybe like a training video, or one thing we did do in Iowa, but we’d given them tours of the prison before they actually start and go through the academy and all that. [It] actually let them see what their job is before they actually start honestly,” Lamb said. “But most of them, they don’t really realize what it is until they start, and I’ll be honest I didn’t really either until I started. But I’ll also be honest we had a lot longer academy where I came from too, and a lot of states do. But we don’t have that luxury here.”
The department’s third goal is to increase the rate of its rehabilitative program completions. That includes education and treatment program completion rates, which have trended up in both categories over the year.
The department’s presentation showed that in December treatment programs had a 91% completion rate, and education programs at 78%. Lamb told appropriators that different programming in 2024 has a lot to do with that, but he will evaluate everything.
