By C1 Staff
PIERRE — A new report states that South Dakota’s prison population held steady in 2014, and that more people completed parole or probation without serious violations.
The Argus Leader reports that the study comes from the Public Safety Improvement Act Oversight Council, a group charged with tracking the success of the state’s 2013 corrections reform.
The report concluded that it’s too early to rate the law’s full impact, but the results have been promising.
“While the reforms have not solved every problem in the public safety system, the provisions in the (law) established the path that will lead South Dakota to a more efficient public safety report,” the authors wrote.
The reforms aimed to keep non-violent offenders out of prison instead of funneling them into probation programs and intensive drug and alcohol courts. Probationers and parolees also earned time off their supervision terms for every month of good behavior after the law took effect.
The state’s prison population also didn’t rise, and in fact dropped below what the bill anticipated.
Sixty percent of parolees completed their terms without being revoked for poor behavior in fiscal year 2014, up from 45 percent the year before.
The percentage of probationers sent to prison or jail for violating their supervision rules hit an all-time low of 4.5 percent in 2014. Five-hundred and fifty-seven were released from supervision entirely for good behavior.
Program changes in the state also had an impact: drug and DUI courts added 89 participants to their programs over two years, the Department of Social Services offers redesigned criminal thinking and substance abuse programs statewise and a rural monitoring program for methamphetamine users is up and running in Walworth County.
Issues still to be dealt with include non-violent offenders presumed to deserve probation sentences are being sent to prison by judges at a higher rate than expected, and an urban monitoring program for meth users has been slow to start.
Another program still in the works is one designed to collect fines and restitution payments from offenders who still owe money after their probation terms are finished.
Legislative changes have been suggested for 2015, including the creation of a stakeholder council to represent the views of county officials whose jails and law enforcement services have been impacted by the re-direction of felons into probationary programs.