Prison population swells despite reforms; meth driving increase
An influx of drug offenders is putting pressure on the state Department of Corrections.
State officials say the massive increase in methamphetamine arrests are behind the swelling prison population, which is below the projections presented to lawmakers before a reform package was pushed in 2013 but higher than that package anticipated.
On Friday, the DOC moved 34 inmates from its minimum security unit in Yankton to bring the facility into compliance with state fire marshal’s capacity recommendations.
Meanwhile, the South Dakota Women’s Prison is nearing a record average daily count, with nearly 500 women behind bars. The average daily count for July, the last month, was 482 – higher than any monthly average
An analysis from the Pew Charitable Trusts over the summer says fully 93 percent of the new admissions to the women’s prison in fiscal year 2016 were nonviolent offenders. Similar patterns are at play in the men’s facility, said Tony Venhuizen, Chief of Staff to Gov. Dennis Daugaard.
More new inmates are drug users sent to prison for probation and parole violations. Violent crime admissions on the state level haven’t kept pace, he said.
Overflowing women's prison moves inmates to family-style house
“We don’t see any evidence of increases in property crimes, in violent crimes, not really even in DUIs to a large degree,” Venhuizen said. “It’s all drugs,”
The goal of the 2013 reforms was to use prison beds only for the most serious and violent offenders and to use them for drug users only as a last resort. Venhuizen said the explosive increase in methamphetamine arrests has forced Governor’s office to look for new ways to tackle the problem.
“We changed about 30 policies in 2013, and most of the reforms are working very well,” said Jim Seward, Daugaard’s advisor on criminal justice reform. “The question now is what do we need to expand and where?”
Concerned citizen call forces inmate relocation
Low-level felonies also pushed the inmate population higher in Yankton, DOC Secretary Denny Kaemingk said Wednesday.
The capacity of the Yankton Community Work Center was originally set at 360 in 2007, Kaemingk said, but numbers had never come close to that level.
Last week, however, as the population neared 350, the DOC took a call from someone Kaemingk called a “concerned citizen” asking if the building was up to the state fire marshall’s safety standards.
The DOC reached out to the fire marshall’s office, Kaemingk said, and found that the recommended number of inmates in the facility’s shared rooms is 10.
“As the numbers kept climbing, it’s something that should have rung a bell with us, but it didn’t,” Kaemingk said.
The DOC moved 34 inmates from Yankton to the minimum custody unit in Rapid City on Friday, Kaemingk said.
“We had everything taken care of pretty quickly,” Kaemingk said.
Dad: Children bemoan loss of inmate family program
Left as designed, the facility should house only 274 people. The DOC will add movable walls and doors and make a handful of other modification to push its capacity back up, Kaemingk said.
The Rapid City minimum unit’s population stands at 334, DOC spokesman Michael Winder said. That unit has a capacity of 419.
The women’s prison has been forced to cope with a squeeze for space this year, as well. Early in 2016, some inmates were moved into the Parents and Children Together House. The PACT House is normally used to allow well-behaved inmates to spend weekends with their children.
Some inmates were moved into halfway houses, nursing homes or private homes in the community in order to reopen the PACT program, Winder said, and the DOC has continued to rely on those housing options as more drug offenders appear.
Both issues are a sign of the stress placed on the DOC by drug sentencing, Kaemingk said. He’d previously said that the temporary PACT House closure was a direct result of nonviolent offenders.
As of Thursday, there are no beds left for minimum security beds in Pierre.
“Our minimum numbers are up, and female numbers are up,” the secretary said. “It’s still nonviolent and drug offenders."
Growth in drug use ripples through system
The report from Pew on the inmate population reflects a massive spike in drug arrests between fiscal years 2015 and 2016.
The number of new arrests for unauthorized ingestion of a controlled substance increased 224 percent in a year. Distribution of a controlled substance arrests jumped 51 percent during the same time period, and possession arrests – which represent the largest number of new inmates by number - increased by 18 percent.
More people were admitted for probation and parole violations in 2016, as well, and the top three drug offenses resulting in admission are related to possession or ingestion of a controlled substance.
The reforms of 2013 made such offenders eligible for a presumption of probation, but repeat violations are landing those probationers and parolees in prison.
When the reforms were enacted, they didn’t account for so steep an increase in meth arrests, Seward said. The trend, he says, exists outside any discussion of Senate Bill 70’s criminal justice reforms.
“When I started to run across these kinds of statistics, I began to realize that meth is the regional problem we’re having,” Seward said. “From Texas to North Dakota, they’re seeing this. Those other regions didn’t pass Senate Bill 70.”
The numbers are “alarming,” according to Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Aaron McGowan, and the addiction issues surrounding meth are driving other crimes. The drug users who land in prison get several chances before they’re sent to the DOC.
Heroin-related arrests increase as drug moves into county
“We’ve encountered probationers that had numerous hot UA’s for controlled substances, have been banned from or absconded from halfway houses, and lost all contact with their probation officer before they are violated and their suspended penitentiary sentence is imposed,” McGowan said. “In my experience, our Judges and Court Service Officers are exhausting all potential options and resources before a probationer is sent to the penitentiary.”
Daugaard's position is that communities need more options, Seward and Venhuizen said. Drug and DUI courts have expanded in the state since Senate Bill 70’s passage, and the state appropriated money for another drug court in Minnehaha County this summer.
The state now has six HOPE programs, which function like 24/7 programs for methamphetamine users. Participants call each day asked are to come in for a drug test on random days. Failure to show up or a failed tests result in short jail stays.
Minnehaha and Pennington counties, which represent the bulk of new arrests, don’t have such a program yet.
“In terms of the Governor’s position, we need HOPE everywhere we can get it,” Seward said. “It’s not in Sioux Falls and Rapid and that’s where they need them.”
Venhuizen also pointed to a methamphetamine education and prevention program from the state Department of Social Services, which launched this school year.
Smart on Crime Pew Presentation by ArgusJHult on Scribd