Guest Column: Changes Desperately Needed at the South Dakota Department of Corrections By State Representative Tim Reisch

Changes Desperately Needed at the South Dakota Department of Corrections
By State Representative Tim Reisch

It’s been just over three years since Kellie Wasko took over as Secretary of the SD Department of Corrections after working in the Colorado prison system.   Since her arrival, policy and operational changes have resulted in a degradation of staff and inmate safety systemwide. Recently she named a county jail administrator from a small county in New Mexico as the new warden of the state penitentiary. Joseph Roemmich is the fourth person in as many years to occupy the position that has seemingly become a revolving door since Wasko’s arrival.

Less than two years following her appointment by then-Governor Kristi Noem, penitentiary employees penned a letter to the governor asking for Wasko’s removal citing changes she made to the disciplinary process that threatened staff safety and that her introduction of “out of cell time” led to an increase in the presence of contraband among inmates. Although Noem elected to stick with Wasko, the complaints voiced in the letter have proven to be accurate based on events that have occurred over the past several months, including:

• February 4, 2025:  Jameson Prison Annex on lock-down.  Over the previous couple weeks, a prison staff member was assaulted while inmates were in line picking up their meds, and a 22-year-old inmate committed suicide.
• February 25, 2025:  I met with Governor Rhoden, Lieutenant Governor Venhuizen and staff and shared my concerns that the policy changes instituted by Wasko have made it dangerous for staff to maintain order. Inconsistent and reduced disciplinary sanctions for inmate misbehavior have emboldened some, threatening staff safety.
• March 31, 2025:  A female correctional officer was assaulted the previous weekend on the hill. She got a broken nose and had to get stiches in her face.  There was also an inmate fight involving about 30 inmates in the D pod at Jameson.  Multiple inmates were shanked.
• May 7, 2025:  A senior correctional employee was punched in the face several times at Mike Durfee State Prison.  Both East Hall (on the hill) and Jameson in Sioux Falls were locked down.
• May 15, 2025:  An inmate found dead in his cell at the old penitentiary (possibly drug related).
• May 18, 2025: Another inmate was found dead in his cell at Jameson (possibly drug related).
• May 27, 2025:  A major gang fight occurred at Jameson with weapons.  Five inmates received stab wounds, three of which were hospitalized. The Attorney General suspects it was gang related.
• June 11, 2025:  Another inmate death at the old penitentiary (assumed to be drug overdose).
• June 20, 2025:  Inmate found dead at Jameson of an apparent suicide.

In addition to the policy changes cited above, Secretary Wasco made another significant shift in prison philosophy involving minimum-custody inmates working in the community.  The community service program was initiated by Governor Bill Janklow in the 1990s.  Inmate crews supervised by journeyman electricians wired the state’s 176 school districts to provide internet access for pennies on the dollar.  After that task was complete, inmate crews were trained to install new rubber membrane roofs on public buildings while other crews ground the old mortar joints out of, and re-tuckpointed brick-faced buildings all across the state.  Simultaneously, scores of other inmates were assigned to work for state agencies, cities, counties and nonprofit organizations.  For many years, an inmate crew was assigned to the South Dakota State Fair doing all sorts of tasks in preparation for the fair as well as removing the tons of trash that accumulated during fair week.

With one stroke of the pen, Secretary Wasko killed the program by raising what the DOC charged the organizations that employed the inmates over $10 an hour instead of the 25 cents an hour that had been the standard for decades.  That decision made the employment of hundreds of inmates who performed so many meaningful jobs across the state unaffordable for the nonprofit organizations and local governments that had previously benefitted from the program.  On a typical day during the program’s existence, maybe a dozen inmates out of the 200+ inmates at the Sioux Falls minimum custody unit would be lying on their beds throughout the day. Several weeks ago, when I toured the penitentiary complex, only 9 inmates out of the 230 assigned there that day had jobs in the community.  The rest of them were sitting around watching TV, playing video games or sleeping.  What a terrible way to prepare offenders for their release back into society.  Governor Janklow used to say that when inmates are required to get up and work every day like the rest of society, they become accustomed to that routine for when they get released.  But if they’re allowed to lay around idle all day while in prison, that will be their expectation when they’re released as well.

The rate at which inmates released from South Dakota prisons are having their parole revoked is alarming.  One reason is that they’re simply unprepared to rejoin society.  They’ve been allowed to sit around all day and wait for their next meal to be served.

Before the taxpayers of South Dakota are asked to pay a billion dollars to modernize our prison system we need to make changes to its current mismanagement.

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Tim Reisch served as Secretary of Corrections longer than anyone in the history of the SD Department of Corrections.  He was appointed Deputy Secretary of Corrections by Governor Bill Janklow, and served as the Cabinet Secretary in the Rounds, Daugaard and Noem administrations.  He is a member of the SD House of Representatives serving District 8.  He serves on Governor Rhoden’s Prison Reset Task Force as well as the Legislative Summer Study on Incarceration and Reentry.