The warden’s office building at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. (Photo by John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Fights and serious injuries spiked higher in South Dakota’s state prisons last year than at any point since at least 2018, according to a report released Wednesday by the state Department of Corrections.
The 2025 Annual Statistical Report covers state fiscal year 2025, which ended on June 30.
Prior to 2022, the state did not regularly list assaults or injuries in its annual reports. That year, it released data on those metrics going back to 2018.
In 2025, assaults on staff across the state’s five prison campuses increased to 142, which was 95 more than the prior year.
Twenty-two of the assaults for 2025 caused serious injuries, a number twice as high as the previous year. Just over half the assaults involved throwing or spitting substances at officers.
There were 447 inmate-on-inmate fights in men’s facilities in 2025, which is 171 more than the prior year. Of the fiscal year 2025 fights, 49 caused serious injuries to inmates.
Fights between women in the state’s female correctional facility in Pierre, meanwhile, fell to 52, down from 60 the year before.
Fiscal year 2025 began in July of 2024 with two days of fighting at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, which houses male prisoners. The state said at the time that six inmates were injured, although some prisoners claimed that figure was low.
The statistical report also reports that staff used force to subdue inmates 518 times during the 2025 fiscal year, and used pepper spray on 189 of those occasions. In 2024, staff used force on inmates 264 times.
Comments