South Dakota is on track to spend $2 billion on prisons in the next decade

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The South Dakota State Penitentiary sits north of downtown Sioux Falls on Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Sarah Raza)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Two years after approving a tough-on-crime sentencing law, South Dakota is scrambling to deal with the price tag for that legislation: Housing thousands of additional inmates could require up to $2 billion to build new prisons in the next decade.

That’s a lot of money for a state with one of the lowest populations in the U.S., but a consultant said it’s needed to keep pace with an anticipated 34% surge of new inmates in the next decade as a result of South Dakota’s tough criminal justice laws. And while officials are grumbling about the cost, they don't seem concerned with the laws that are driving the need even as national crime rates are dr