Calls for transparency and accountability permeate prison commission meeting • South Dakota Searchlight

The first meeting of the South Dakota Corrections Commission in nearly a year drew calls for transparency and accountability from commissioners, lawmakers and members of the public.

Under state law, the commission is meant to advise the Department of Corrections (DOC) on matters of justice and public safety. The DOC also needs commission approval to spend any money to adjust the operations of prison industries like the state’s license plate or sign-making shops.

There was much to discuss on Thursday.

Since the commission’s last meeting in October of 2023, the Department of Corrections has faced a series of controversies, among them a lawsuit in Lincoln County over its proposed site for a new men’s prison, two bouts of unrest at two separate prisons that injured inmates and staff, a suspension of tablet-based communications that contributed to one of those bouts of violence, and concerns from inmates and family members over the price of goods made available through the state’s new commissary vendor.

Questions have also emerged about the commission’s role in light of testimony from DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko to lawmakers on the state’s Government Operations and Audit Committee in July, as well as comments from some commission members suggesting that the group has ceased to serve its intended purpose. 

As many as 33 people at a time logged in for the virtual meeting, a figure that includes Department of Corrections staff members and commissioners. 

Most who spoke expressed concerns over the host of issues facing the prison system.

“I’ve heard nothing but more chaos in the past six months,” said Sen. Shawn Bordeaux, D-Mission, who was elected to serve as the commission’s chair on Thursday. “I’m really struggling with what we can do.”

Role of commission debated

Wasko began the meeting by addressing what she called “perceived interpretations” of the laws defining the commission’s role. 

On July 31, Wasko told the state’s audit committee that she answers to it, not the commission. Prior to that meeting, DOC officials had asserted in public statements that the commission’s only role was to oversee Pheasantland Industries, the umbrella term for the industrial shops inside DOC facilities.

Those assertions came despite language in state law that defines the commission’s role more broadly. In the past, its members toured prisons, asked questions about justice reform efforts and security measures, and weighed in on new prison construction options.

Particularly with security incidents, Wasko said July 31, she doesn’t feel that she should discuss the details with the commission’s citizen members in the group’s open public meetings. She also suggested that lawmakers reassess the commission’s role. 

On Thursday, she read the law that created the commission, noting that the statute refers to it as an advisory body, not an oversight one. She said she’d “done some homework” by reviewing notes from 10 years of commission meetings and learned that the commission’s focus narrowed to prison industries sometime around 2018.

The commission’s members were given paper copies of the DOC’s annual statistical report in January. If commissioners want to weigh in and advise the DOC based on those figures, Wasko said, they are welcome to do so.

She receives and responds to calls from lawmakers on a weekly basis, she said. But aside from Judge Christina Klinger and newly appointed member Sen. Helene Duhamel, R-Rapid City, “I’ve never received a single email, text or call from another member of this commission asking for an opportunity to discuss a concern,” Wasko said.

Commission members David McGirr and Mark Anderson have bemoaned the body’s narrowed focus. On Thursday, McGirr said previous iterations of the commission had a more useful role.

Without discussions on broader justice issues, he said, there’s little incentive for the unpaid commissioners to show up at all.

“It really feels like we don’t need to be meeting several times a year to discuss prison industries and financials,” he said.

Previous commissions spent time talking about diversion programs and ways to reduce the prison population, Anderson said. Yet the commission has never discussed the state’s current plans for new prisons over the two years those plans have taken shape.

“My biggest concern is that we’re looking at building a prison when the people before you, their intention was to reduce the number of inmates so we didn’t have to build a new prison,” Anderson said.

Rep. Kevin Jensen, R-Canton, a former commission member, joined Thursday’s meeting to say he intends to bring legislation to strengthen the commission’s role. The group learned a lot from tours, Jensen said, and its members discussed justice issues and potential legislative fixes on an ongoing basis. The law that created the commission says the group should engage in a “continuing study” of criminal justice issues, Jensen said.

“I don’t see any continuing study,” he said. “It seems like it’s just meeting to meeting.”

Jensen wrote an op-ed for The Dakota Scout newspaper, published Thursday morning, that outlined his concerns in more detail.

Wasko told commissioners she’d be happy to offer more information or to set up tours of prison facilities. As for justice reform efforts, Wasko said none of them moved the needle on the state’s prison population in the years before her arrival from Colorado in 2022. She’s worked since then to address the issues that were front and center, such as overcrowding and staffing.

“I came into this state looking at an agenda, and I followed what that agenda was,” Wasko said.

As for calls to adjust the authority or scope of the commission’s work, Wasko said she would prefer that it “remain in the advisory capacity, as state statute recommends.”

Calls for transparency

The meeting’s regular agenda included a discussion of changes to prison commissary operations. The DOC switched its vendor for the prison store starting this month. As part of the contract with Union Supply, inmates work to manage inventory on site at the prison in Sioux Falls. 

DOC Finance Director Brittni Skipper said one of the goals of the switch was to offer inventory skills training in areas like forklift operations.

“They get the skills that are needed in a high-demand industry in e-commerce,” Skipper said.

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Some inmates and family members have complained of higher prices, however. McGirr said he’s seen media reports on the prices, and said he’d voted to approve the changes last October with the understanding that prices would drop. 

“The idea was that we would see a lowering in cost to the prisoners as well as some profit-making to help run the prisons,” McGirr said.

Skipper said the new commissary catalog includes 142 new items. Of the items listed in both the old and new catalogs, she said, more than half cost less or are within 10 cents of their prior price. 

“One of the biggest items for commissary are ramen noodles,” Skipper said. “The difference is one cent.”

McGirr wondered why there wouldn’t be more savings, given that inmates earn a dollar an hour to manage the system. 

“I had hoped we would live up to our expectations,” he said.

Wasko said there are good reasons for some of the price increases. Televisions cost more now, she said, but the new televisions are “prison grade,” more durable and with clear outer casings for security.

Beth Warden, a reporter with Dakota News Now, referenced that point in her own public comments. Warden decried what she described as a lack of transparency and argued that the DOC’s reticence to answer basic questions on security incidents or issues like price increases does damage to the agency’s credibility.

Wasko’s explanation on the price of televisions, Warden said, could’ve been shared with the reporters covering the inmates’ price concerns.

“Why are we having to fight to get answers that would lower the tension?” Warden said.

Lynette Johnson, the widow of slain correctional officer Ron “R.J.” Johnson, also called on Wasko to adjust her approach. Johnson’s husband was murdered by two inmates in 2011, both of whom have since been put to death. 

“If you follow the agenda of the past, there was no transparency,” Johnson said.

Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls, put the blame for a lack of openness on Republican Gov. Kristi Noem’s office. The lawmaker said the state needs more information on corrections, because “it belongs to all of us.” 

“For six years, I have seen the shutting down of transparency in this state,” Duba said. “I agree with the press in their frustration.”

Nieema Thasing, an advocate for inmates who lives in Sioux Falls, thanked Wasko for opening up the discussion and addressing several of the issues that have arisen this year, calling the discussion “forward-looking.”

Thasing then suggested that the state create a citizen commission to address the concerns of inmates, family members and members of the communities to which most incarcerated individuals return after serving their sentences.

“I would volunteer myself, and I know there would be other people who would serve on a citizen commission,” Thasing said. 

After the meeting, newly elected commission chairman Bordeaux said he supports the idea of a citizen commission, and that he would be happy to work with Rep. Jensen on bills to strengthen the corrections commission’s role. He also said he plans to bring a bill to add two more lawmakers to the commission to act as liaisons for the rest of the Legislature.

The next Corrections Commission meeting is set for Nov. 19.