Former lawmakers say new task force on prison not needed

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A senate committee passed a bill Monday recommending that lawmakers form a task force now to take a closer look at what to do next when it comes to building a new men’s prison.

But, some people say we’ve been down this road before.

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Almost three years ago, a prison task force was formed to conduct a summer study on not only the men’s prison, but the entire prison system.

KELOLAND News caught up with a couple of former legislators, one who was on that task force, who say forming another task force would be a waste of time and money.

The prison task force; made of lawmakers, law enforcement officials and even the Secretary of Corrections, met a couple of times back in 2022 and came up with a comprehensive report with several recommendations based on the DLR summer study that was commissioned by the state.

Linda Duba, who is former state representative, served on that task force.

“The top two recommendations in that study were a new women’s prison and a new men’s prison to replace the hill,” Duba said.

Duba says the task force also came up with several other recommendations including adding more space to add more programs, because the study showed recidivism rates were consistently 40% to 44%.

“So what does that mean, what does that mean? It means we lock people up, but we don’t spend the funding on diversion programming and education to help these people when they get out,” Duba said.

Ryan Maher, who was on the appropriations committee, wasn’t on the summer study task force, but he toured the prison with Duba and other lawmakers.

Don: So when this bill failed what went through your mind?

Ryan: That they are going to cost taxpayers a whole lot more money, I mean they had a guaranteed price of $830 some million dollars and the longer they drag this out the more money it’s actually going to cost the taxpayer.

Don: Linda Duba said forming another task force to what they’ve already done is just going to be a waste of time.

Ryan: Exactly because they aren’t going to solve anything else they’re going to come up with the same conclusions that the prior task force already did.

The proposed task force bill failed earlier today on a 20-15 vote.

It would have established a 10-member panel that would meet at least six times this year and report its recommendations no later than December 1st.