(Editor’s note – I had originally had his e-mail to representatives shared, but Rep. Bathke forwarded me this version instead and asked me to post it. Please keep him in your thoughts while he serves South Dakota and the United States on deployment in the Middle East. – pp)
Time to vote yes on the prison
As I am deployed to the Middle East with the military, I will not be in attendance for the special session vote on the prison. Last session, we debated HB 1025, which requested to transfer $148M from the General Fund to the Incarceration Construction Fund. The debate quickly changed to, do we or do we not need a new prison, which was not the topic of the bill.
There are very few legislators who have worked in the prison. Several have toured, but trust me, it’s not the same as walking through the sally port each morning and hearing the door slam behind you. I worked in the system for several years, with my office in Captain’s Row on the Hill for many of those years. She’s old, she’s tired, and she’s no longer safe. I walked through the cell block every morning amongst murderers, rapists, and kidnappers; many serving a life sentence who had very little to lose if they waited in a hidden area and stuck a shank in my back.
It hasn’t been that long ago that a few inmates brutally beat a Correctional Officer and left him to die in an escape attempt. This happened about 20 yards from my office. The new prison will be much safer for staff and even the inmates. There is a big difference in the Hill and Jameson. Safety and security came a long way between 1881 and 1993. It can be even better today.
Many continue to say they haven’t had their questions answered. If not, they haven’t been listening or even attending the meetings. Some say they want the rehabilitation and recidivism addressed first. We can do both, simultaneously. The new prison design has several thousand square feet of rehabilitation and vocational space, compared to just a few classrooms today.
Is this project expensive? Yes, commercial construction to last 100 years is going to be expensive. Is the location perfect? No, but if not here, where? This location has experienced the least amount of resistance. Every time one question is answered, those against the project find another “unanswered question” that has already been answered.
Every day Correctional Officers, Counselors, Unit Managers, Teachers, Nurses, Cooks, Maintenance Staff, Associate Wardens, a Deputy Warden, and the Warden walk through the Sally Port to work a shift on the Hill. It takes every one of them risking their lives to operate the prison. Last session, someone on the House of Representatives floor asked, “what is a life worth?” That is what the Legislature will decide during the special session. What is a life worth?
Maybe I’m a slow learner, but in just under 20 years working in corrections, I never considered myself an expert, but in just 26 short days during the last session, many legislators became self-proclaimed experts in funding, constructing, and operating a prison. I have asked the House of Representatives to think of the staff I just mentioned before they cast their vote and I hope they vote with their conscience, one that they can live with. I would encourage everyone to consider the value of the employees and inmates and support this project. I am sorry I cannot be there Tuesday for this historic vote. I would be proud to vote YES, and I would hate to see this vote fail.
Representative Jeff Bathke
District 20
It’s funny we describe only those violent offenses and overlook 40% of our SD population is non-violent or drug offenses. This current prison isn’t a shining light of a working model. As a taxpayer, I would be more interested in investing in a new concept as opposed to doubling down on the old with delusions that it somehow “works”. It seems we are more focused on this as an economic element than a public safety element. As we embrace more automation and AI, we are worried about “guards”? I would like to see an automated or robotic prison, and if you are there, it should be because you are unfit for society, not because you forgot to file taxes properly or you smoked pot.
“.. I would like to see an automated or robotic prison…”
Um.. you’re kidding, right?
Not at all, if we didn’t selectively pick what types of agencies we want to operate like “a business” we would embrace all efficiencies available to get the most out of our tax dollars. We already do this within the prison system with healthcare, when you need to see a professional we don’t call the local psychiatrist and have them visit the prisoner in their cell which increases the safety risk of guars and the HC worker. We put a screen in front of the prisoner, and they telehealth to a low bid contractor states away. Why would we not embrace this notion of efficiency within all aspects. Do we need people delivering food or do we have tech now available to deliver it without food? You may say it is inhumane and would not reduce recidivism, but what we are doing now isn’t any better. It is also why I say prison should be for those unfit for society, not for those people who made a mistake.
Anonymous 9:06, your post is typical too-clever NIMBY disruption, disguised as a valid concern that we just don’t have the right plan “yet” and need a few more years of soul searching and hand wringing. GET IT DONE, the time is now.
There is no one in the SDSP incarcerated for smoking pot or failing to pay state taxes (federal tax violators go to federal prison).
Rep Bathke gets it.
An excellent article written by an experienced individual who has his thought this issue through from the perspective of the people who work in (and reside in) the state penitentiary. May God bless you Representative Bathke as you defend our freedoms overseas.
What the whole argument lacks is Benjamin Franklin:
“an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The cost of operating the prison will be about 30 million per year. If we had spent half that much over the past decade on drug education, prevention and treatment, we would likely not need to prison, or at least a much smaller one AND HAVE A BETTER STATE, where this people would be productive, taxpayers instead of living off the taxpayers and causing damage that got them there.
MIT all part of people’s mentality. The taxpaying public would rather spend $100 punishing a “bad actor” than spend $10 of their dollars on bad people who “don’t deserve it”.
You really live in a dream world don’t you. Unicorns are real too.
More delay delay delay from the nimby crowd. BUILD IT.
“If we had spent half that much over the past decade on drug education, prevention and treatment, we would likely not need….” blah blah blah. Complete fallacy. If all this education and prevention worked, you are right Jack, we wouldn’t need prisons. But the facts are so many people in this system aren’t looking for education or prevention. Frankly, many of these people seek pleasure from drugs and alcohol and end up going down a path that leads to bigger problems. We rarely imprison people who have DUI and marijuana problems any more. We imprison people in our state prisons largely when they hurt or kill others. Often time they have drug, alcohol, or mental health problems. Yes, those are all things that can be prevented or treated but only if and when the individual wants help. We can’t force addicts to get better. We can’t educate and prevent people from doing things that harm them – if that worked, we’d live in a perfect place already because we certainly have spent trillions as a nation trying to tell people drugs are bad and to not drink and drive. Ultimately, addicts can heal when they decide they want to heal. Many never decide that. I don’t know what the correlation between addiction and incarceration is – I’m sure someone can come up with those numbers, but I’m betting a high percentage of current inmates are or were addicted to something.
So yes, build the prison and put violent and dangerous people in there. I don’t want to pay for it, but it’s a necessary part of having safe communities. I don’t know to what extent prisons are a deterrent, but I do know there’s a whole bunch of people in those facilities that I don’t want near my wife or kids. So keep them locked up, and keep the staff that work there as safe as possible. While they are in there, rehabilitate those who want to get better. But realize some don’t want to get better and it’s best to keep them locked up.
As long as we are talking about utopian solutions: The prevention needed is put an end to the social disease called fatherlessness.
I would venture most of the prisoners had absent fathers, and never learned self-discipline. Fatherlessness has resulted in so many social problems that throughout history, different cultures
have tried a lot of things to end it, like stoning, exiling, scarlet letters, and abortion, putting the onus on the mothers. This was because it has only been recently that fathers can actually be truly identified through DNA. Without being able to prove who fathered the kids, the mothers were punished, sometimes even with death, indicating how much of a problem it is in some societies.
It’s time to start tracking down and punishing the men who fathered these men, really punishing them. Surgical procedures might be called for here. It will take a generation to fix, so in the meantime, maybe they could share prison cells with their sons.
And another thing: while we have long provided women with the option of suing men for unpaid child support, when the father is supposed to be spending every other weekend with his kid but doesn’t, what recourse does mom have? How about putting Dad in jail for those weekends? If he is supposed to be picking the child up on Friday night and doesn’t show up, how about the police go to his house and pick HIM up instead?? We have all heard the stories people tell about how their fathers ghosted them up when they were kids.
We aren’t going to solve a problem until we recognize what the problem really is. When Tim Bjorkman was running for Congress and was asked “what is the biggest problem facing the country?” he answered “fatherlessness.” He’s right.
I don’t get the feeling that most people here want to keep hearing about utopian solutions. We need the real world solution to an aging unsuitable state pen. Pronto.
Interesting take from someone that publicly said they were against the new prison before session at a coffee with the legislators event hosted by the Mitchell Chamber.