Children and Incarceration in South Dakota: A Complete Guide

South Dakota's 2025 annual corrections report documented a 50 percent recidivism rate, the highest in eight years. Within that number is a more specific crisis: Native American people are 39 percent of the state's total prison population despite being a minority of South Dakota's general population. For Native women, the situation is documented and severe: they comprise 61 percent of the female prisoner population and face a 66 percent recidivism rate. That rate is not a failure of individual choices alone. It reflects decades of structural inequality, inadequate cultural programming, and the particular geography of the reservation system, where families and communities are hours from the facilities that hold their members.

I went into the federal system, not the South Dakota DOC. I went in when my kids were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20. What I know from 66 months is that what the system produces as aggregate outcomes is shaped by thousands of individual choices that both parents make during every sentence. The 50 percent recidivism rate and the 66 percent rate for Native women are numbers that reflect what happens when both the system and the families fail to do the work that keeps people connected during incarceration. Some of what shapes those numbers is structural and beyond both parents' reach. Some of it is not.

South Dakota's facilities and the distances they create

South Dakota is a large, sparsely populated state. The major population centers are Sioux Falls in the far east and Rapid City in the west. Most of the state between them is prairie, rangeland, and the reservation lands of the Lakota and Dakota nations.

The South Dakota State Penitentiary is in Sioux Falls. It is Level IV maximum security, opened in 1881, at 1600 North Drive in Sioux Falls. The Jameson Annex is adjacent. Mike Durfee State Prison is in Springfield in Bon Homme County in the far southeast, on the campus of the former University of South Dakota at Springfield. Springfield is 220 miles from Rapid City and roughly 100 miles west of Sioux Falls. The South Dakota Women's Prison is in Pierre, the state capital, at 3200 East Highway 34. Pierre is 180 miles from Rapid City and 230 miles from Sioux Falls.

For families on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the southwest of the state, the Women's Prison in Pierre is about 130 miles east on Highway 44, a drive that crosses the Badlands and the Missouri River. The Penitentiary in Sioux Falls is 350 miles east. For families on the Rosebud Reservation, Pierre is 110 miles north. These are not impossible drives, but they are real drives through the high plains, in weather that can be severe in winter, for families who may not have reliable vehicles and who may have children with school schedules that make a round trip take the better part of a day.

The A&O period and the communication blackout

When a new offender enters the South Dakota DOC system, they go through an Acceptance and Orientation period known as A&O. During A&O, the offender is not allowed visits. Phone calls and mail are permitted; visits and video visits do not begin until A&O is complete and the offender is assigned to a housing unit.

Families who do not know this sometimes arrive for a visit and are turned away. The information families need during A&O is how to write and how to call. For male offenders in A&O: South Dakota State Penitentiary, 1600 North Drive, PO Box 5911, Sioux Falls SD 57117-5911. For female offenders in A&O: South Dakota Women's Prison, 3200 East Highway 34, c/o 500 East Capitol Avenue, Pierre SD 57501-5070. Write during A&O. The letter arrives even when the visit cannot.

Communication: VisitNow, GettingOut, and JailATM

Video visits in South Dakota DOC work through VisitNow, accessed when the offender initiates a call from a docking station on their tablet. The family member must be on the approved phone list to receive VisitNow calls.

Tablet messaging goes through GettingOut. Select facilities have access to GettingOut messaging. Messages are exchanged between the offender and approved contacts on their phone list. Messages are not instant and are subject to review. Photos cannot be sent or received through GettingOut messages. GettingOut customer support: 888-428-1845.

Money can be sent through JailATM (online; typically available within two days): jailatm.com or 1-877-810-0914. Approved visitors can also send money orders or cashier's checks by mail; cash and personal checks are not accepted. All money orders and cashier's checks must be payable to the offender and include the offender's full name and DOC ID.

All prospective visitors and anyone who wishes to send funds must complete a visitation application. This applies to the money channel as well as the visit itself.

FCC rate caps effective April 6, 2026, limit calls to $0.11 per minute at prisons and large jails plus a facility fee.

The decision the 50 percent rate does not make for either parent

My wife never said a word against me to our six children during 66 months. She had every reason. She had six kids in a situation I had created. She chose to let them love me without penalty. What I have with my adult children today is the direct result of that choice.

The parent inside a South Dakota facility carries the same obligation. South Dakota's recidivism numbers reflect what happens when the connections do not hold. The connections that hold are built by both parents making specific choices during the sentence: the phone call on a consistent schedule, the GettingOut message that says something specific to this specific child, the VisitNow session that the offender initiates and that lets the child see a face.

Say it on every call: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent. The 66 percent recidivism rate for Native women is a system failure and a structural failure and a resource failure. It is also shaped, in some portion, by whether the connections hold during the sentence. Make the calls. Send the messages. Let the child see your face on VisitNow. The call from the penitentiary in Sioux Falls takes the same 10 minutes as a call from anywhere else in this series.

What the ages mean in South Dakota

My children were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20 when I went in.

The 9-year-old in Rapid City or on Pine Ridge or in a small reservation community whose parent is at the Penitentiary in Sioux Falls or the Women's Prison in Pierre needs the same thing every 9-year-old in this series needs: to hear directly and often that none of what happened is their fault. Children under 10 build private, silent explanations for a parent's absence. The explanation they most often reach is that they caused it. That belief settles in quietly. It does not dissolve because the context is large. Complete the visitation application. Make the call. Say it on every call: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent.

The 11 and 12-year-old in South Dakota is navigating middle school in a state with wide community range, from Sioux Falls suburbs to reservation communities where poverty is high and support resources are limited. A parent's incarceration at this age, in these communities, can be the continuation of an experience the child has already been living. The incarcerated parent who uses GettingOut to send messages, who initiates VisitNow calls from the tablet, who calls on a consistent schedule, is maintaining the connection that shapes what the child carries through those years.

The 15-year-old has a full view of both parents. They know which calls are genuine and which are obligatory. Do not lecture from Pierre or Sioux Falls. Call to ask and listen. The teenager who believes the incarcerated parent is paying genuine attention will stay in the relationship.

The 18 and 20-year-old is an adult deciding what to maintain. Show up as someone worth the decision.

What the outside parent carries in South Dakota

The outside parent in Rapid City or on the Rosebud Reservation or in Sioux Falls is managing children, a household, and the logistics of incarceration in a state where the Women's Prison is in Pierre and the Penitentiary is in Sioux Falls and the drives are long across prairie that turns severe in winter. They are completing the visitation application, navigating JailATM, and making the drive when the season and the schedule allow.

What they need from the incarcerated parent is acknowledgment. One VisitNow call or one GettingOut message where the person inside names specifically what they see the outside parent carrying and says thank you for it, in direct and genuine terms, is worth more than any instruction delivered from inside a South Dakota facility. My wife carried six children through 66 months. She deserved to hear that I saw it. I said so as often as the access allowed.

For the outside parent: South Dakota's recidivism numbers are partly about what happens when families come apart during the sentence. The choices you make about how you speak about the incarcerated parent in front of the children who are watching, and whether you keep the door open while the sentence runs, are part of what shapes whether the 50 percent number claims another family. My wife never said anything against me. What I have now is what that made possible.

How communication works in South Dakota

Video visits: VisitNow via offender's tablet docking station; offender initiates the call; family must be on approved phone list.

Messaging: GettingOut (select facilities); tablet messaging between offender and approved contacts on phone list; messages reviewed; no photo exchange; GettingOut support: 888-428-1845.

Money: JailATM online at jailatm.com; 1-877-810-0914; support@jailatm.com. Money orders/cashier's checks by mail also accepted from approved visitors; payable to offender with name and DOC ID; no cash or personal checks.

Mail during A&O: male inmates -> South Dakota State Penitentiary, 1600 North Drive, PO Box 5911, Sioux Falls SD 57117-5911. Female inmates -> South Dakota Women's Prison, 3200 East Highway 34, c/o 500 East Capitol Avenue, Pierre SD 57501-5070.

All prospective visitors and fund senders must complete a visitation application. During A&O, visits are not permitted; phone and mail continue.

Packages through approved vendor: Union Supply via SDPackageProgram.com.

SD DOC website: doc.sd.gov. South Dakota State Penitentiary: 1600 North Drive, Sioux Falls SD 57117; (605) 367-5051. South Dakota Women's Prison: 3200 East Highway 34, Pierre SD 57501; (605) 773-6636. Mike Durfee State Prison: 1412 Wood Street, Springfield SD 57062; (605) 369-2201.

Federal inmates in South Dakota fall under BOP jurisdiction. BOP communication uses TRULINCS for email via CORRLINKS and TRUFONE for phone. FCC rate caps apply; First Step Act programming offers 300 free minutes per month.

Where this leaves you

South Dakota has a 50 percent recidivism rate and a 66 percent recidivism rate for Native women. Those numbers mean half the people who leave prison return. They mean two-thirds of Native women return. They mean the connections that should hold during the sentence are failing, structurally and individually, at rates that show up in the data.

Some of what produces those numbers is beyond what any single parent can fix. The structural and cultural failures that contribute to those rates require system-level change that a task force recommendation and a tribal cultural liaison hire are only beginning to address.

What is not beyond the individual parent is the phone call. The GettingOut message. The VisitNow session initiated from the docking station. The letter written during A&O when the visit is not yet permitted. The consistent schedule that tells the child: I am still here. I am paying attention. This is not your fault.

South Dakota's numbers are what they are. The choices both parents make in response to those numbers are still individual choices. Make them for the specific child who is waiting.