South Dakota Lawmakers Sign Off on New Men’s Correctional Facility

During a special session on Sept. 23, South Dakota lawmakers passed a bill to establish a new men’s correctional facility in Minnehaha County. The project will allocate $650 million towards a site located Northeast of Sioux Falls. The new prison will add 1,500 additional beds and will replace the current state penitentiary. The bill was accompanied by Gov. Rhoden establishing a task force to handle recidivism rates. 

“In my 25 plus years in Pierre, I’ve seen a lot of legislation,” said Rhoden. “Few things that we’ve done are as significant as what we’re doing here today, so I am pleased beyond measure that we got to this point and it’s due to the work of the people surrounding me here and their efforts and their tenacity and their wisdom and just getting it done.” 

The bill passed with 58 yes, 18 no, and one excused, clearing the 52-vote threshold by six votes. The $650 million dollar price tag is $75 million short of a $725 million estimate from July. The task force in charge of finding a workable site believed that a tighter budget was necessary to get the bill through a difficult financial bill vote.

“There is no appetite, none, for going above $650 million,” said Lt. Governor Vonhuizen.”  

The $650 million set aside is from the Incarceration Construction fund, a pre-existing funding pool created in 2022. It will also include $78 million from the General Revenue Replacement fund. These combined make it the most expensive project paid for by state taxpayers in South Dakota history. 

The current penitentiary was built in 1881, eight years prior to South Dakota becoming a state. Critics have raised concerns about overcrowding and poor conditions. A report for the Department of Corrections by an outside party estimated that the prison was over its recommended population by 200 prisoners.  

That same report described the prison as “the oldest of all the facilities in the system and houses close to 700 male inmates in the high-medium classification. The facility is, given its age and configuration, not efficient to operate and expensive to maintain.” 

South Dakota has an abnormally high incarceration rate, with 812 incarcerated prisoners for every 100,000 residents. This makes South Dakota a statistical anomaly compared to neighboring states like North Dakota or Minnesota. Several critics have argued that harsher sentencing practices in South Dakota are driving this rate.  

Until recently, South Dakota had the only felony charge for ingestion in the nation. This caused high rates of incarceration for first time offenders. Prison overcrowding also made rehabilitation programs difficult, leading to concerns over recidivism. Some reports are indicating that even with the new prison, South Dakota would fall behind its 2030 Male capacity needs.