U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, left, and Gov. Larry Rhoden are two of the candidates for the Republican nomination for governor of South Dakota. They traded criticism recently over each other's approach to preventing repeat crime. (Photos by South Dakota Searchlight)
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Two Republican candidates for governor of South Dakota spotlighted dueling plans Tuesday to prevent repeat crime.
As Gov. Larry Rhoden announced new efforts by his prison rehabilitation task force, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson pledged to create his own task force while slamming the lack of progress on the issue during the recently concluded legislative session as “unacceptable.”
Their concern about recidivism is rooted partly in recent decisions by Rhoden, his predecessor Kristi Noem and the Legislature to build an $87 million women’s prison in Rapid City and a $650 million men’s prison in Sioux Falls.
As part of Rhoden’s efforts last year to win lawmaker support for the men’s prison, he created a Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force with a goal of rehabilitating inmates and preventing them from reoffending. Rhoden said at the time that “the next task” after deciding to build a prison “is to expand our rehabilitative programming.”
The task force continues to meet, but has yet to offer legislative proposals. Lawmakers rejected a bill last month that would have awarded $2.7 million to the state Department of Corrections to expand an existing rehabilitation program within the prison system, with some opponents arguing that the task force should finish its work and offer recommendations first. Lawmakers also said no to a bill that would have put $50,000 toward the study of juvenile corrections in other states.
Rhoden’s office did support, and eventually sign, a bill that requires the Department of Corrections to make sure inmates are released with “suitable” clothing, and to transport them upon release to their home county, the county from which they were sentenced, or to a different location as close to their release site as the closer of the other two options.
Johnson criticized the lack of major legislative action during a roundtable discussion he organized Tuesday in Rapid City with officials from law enforcement, addiction counseling and other related fields.
“I just can’t believe that after we told everyone that we would have big new rehabilitation and treatment within the walls of the prison — that was a part of the deal of how we got the new prison — that the governor and some members of the Legislature walked away from it,” Johnson said.
Rhoden lobbed his own criticism Tuesday on the X social media platform, posting that “plans are fine, but when it comes to public safety, I have delivered RESULTS.”
Rhoden rolls out task force news
The rest of Tuesday’s news from Rhoden came through the state Department of Corrections, which announced a $160,000 contract extension that will allow the Council of State Governments Justice Center to continue providing consultation services to the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force. The contract runs through March 31, 2027.
The council will perform a “comprehensive evaluation” of correctional programming and reentry, recommend changes, and will “help translate those recommendations into action,” according to a press release from the department. The consultant pulled together preliminary findings and presented them to the task force in December.
The department is also engaged in what Tuesday’s news release described as “an evaluation of parole” called the “Smarter Supervision Initiative.” That effort aims to help the state supervise parolees more effectively “and reduce violent reoffending across the state.”
Rhoden and Lt. Gov Tony Venhuizen, the rehabilitation task force’s leader, each wrote letters in support of an application for an $892,000 grant from the Bureau of Justice, which was submitted at the end of March. If awarded, the grant money would fund a three-year plan to address what Rhoden’s letter acknowledged to be a reoffense rate that’s higher than South Dakota’s neighbors.
Half of exiting inmates reoffend within three years, Rhoden wrote, which “tells us that our current approach to community supervision is not producing the outcomes we need.”
The state’s parole initiative, he wrote, represents “exactly the kind of data-driven, results-oriented investment in public safety South Dakotans deserve.”
Johnson offers competing plan, points to purported missteps
Rhoden and Johnson are each seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for governor in the June 2 primary election. The other candidates are Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden and state House Speaker Jon Hansen. On the Democratic side, one candidate has been certified for the ballot so far: Dan Ahlers, the executive director of the state Democratic Party and a former legislator.
Rhoden took over as governor following the resignation of Noem, who left in January 2025 for a Trump administration Cabinet post.
Johnson is running for governor rather than seeking another term in the U.S. House. He released a “Safer South Dakota” plan Tuesday.
If elected, Johnson would convene a “Supervision and Release Task Force,” the congressman said, to be led by Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar and former Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom. The group would explore ways to improve community supervision for parolees and people on probation.
Haggar is a member of Rhoden’s task force. In Johnson’s public safety press release, Haggar is quoted saying the Johnson plan “is an important first step towards building safer neighborhoods.”
The Johnson group would also include other “representatives from law enforcement, the judicial branch, and the Board of Pardons and Paroles.”
Johnson supports clemency reform
Johnson’s task force would additionally discuss ways to “reform the clemency process” and “help ensure violent criminals are prevented from repeatedly harming the public.”
Under the South Dakota Constitution, only the governor can grant pardons or commutations. A pardon scrubs an old crime from a person’s record; a commutation shortens the sentence for a current inmate. Both forms of clemency typically begin with an application to the state parole board, which reviews it, holds a hearing on the matter and votes to recommend approval or denial for the governor.
Noem bypassed the board and granted commutations to 20 people over the course of two years, but she also signed commutations for people who’d been screened and recommended by the board.
The two governors who served just prior to Noem’s first term, Dennis Daugaard and now-U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, did not approve clemency applications without parole board review. Thus far, Rhoden hasn’t, either.
Johnson indicated Tuesday during an interview with South Dakota Searchlight that he was not aware of Noem’s granting of commutations without parole board reviews. But he said presidents of both major political parties have issued “highly problematic” pardons, adding that on the state and federal level, “we need to ask ourselves if we should have more than one person wield this power.”
“I would be supportive of a law that would mandate a role for the Board of Pardons and Paroles before the governor could issue that clemency,” Johnson said.
Drug distribution proposal
Johnson’s plan also proposes a change to state law on drug distribution, making possession of at least 3 grams of fentanyl or methamphetamine enough on its own to trigger what he called a “presumption of distribution.”
Asked how that position squares with concerns about filling up prisons, Johnson said “you can be tough on crime and smart on crime.”
“The reality is we should give no quarter for drug dealers,” he said. “They’re the ones that are killing our children. And through rehabilitation and treatment, we can get users healthy and we can help them live law-abiding lives.”
Under current law, prosecutors must prove a person sold or intended to sell drugs for that person to be convicted of felony drug dealing. People found guilty of dealing 4 or more grams of fentanyl are currently subject to stiffer penalties under state law than they’d be for selling other drugs.
Johnson also promised to push a law change that would require automatic parental notification from schools if a minor has an overdose or “drug-related emergency,” and to post drug overdose statistics “in real time.”
Rhoden: We’ve got results
A new approach to overdoses is necessary, Johnson said, because South Dakota’s rate of overdose deaths hasn’t dropped as quickly as it has in other states. Nationally, the U.S. had a nearly 20% reduction in overdose deaths over the past year, he said, while South Dakota’s overdose rate fell by a little under 12%.
In response to a South Dakota Searchlight request for comment on Johnson’s plan, Rhoden spokesman Ian Fury pointed to the governor’s post on X.
The post says overdose deaths and “methamphetamine crimes” are down in the state since Rhoden took office, as are burglaries and murders. The new prison is “DONE,” the post says, and “Operation Prairie Thunder” — a branded series of city-by-city saturation patrols by state troopers — has been a “SUCCESS.” Fewer parolees have lost contact with their parole officers, the post says, and Rhoden added a new squad of state troopers to the Sioux Falls area.
Later Tuesday, Hansen said in a statement to South Dakota Searchlight that he stood “shoulder to shoulder” with state Attorney General Marty Jackley and law enforcement as the state “cracked down on crime,” including crimes of government corruption.
If elected, Hansen said, “we will deter crimes before they occur by spreading the message far and wide: there will be zero tolerance for crimes of violence and corruption — and any violations will be met with the strongest possible penalties.”
In a statement, Doeden said South Dakota is “on fire with a drug epidemic,” that drugs are “the driving force” for crime in the state, and that stiffer penalties for dealers and better options for addiction treatment are needed. He said Johnson and Rhoden “have been in political office for decades and have failed to bring forward anything meaningful to improve public safety.”
“It is not lost on the people of South Dakota that they only put forward plans when an election year rolls around,” Doeden said.
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