01/25/2024
If, after reading this, you are interested in helping make your community safer, pm me. I'll point you in the right direction.
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A Cry For Help And A Call To Action
Have you heard the one about the prison that was so short-staffed the prisoners started asking the community to come be Correctional Officers?
Sounds like a joke doesn't it? Well, it's not a joke, it’s South Dakota. But this is not an article about staffing a prison. This is a call to action for citizen engagement. Get involved. We have all seen news reports about crimes committed by a person on
parole, and wondered why this was allowed to happen, and I need you to understand this truth. The prison system failed its mandate to keep South
Dakotans safe. The prison system in this state was run by people who don’t actively put forth the effort to rehabilitate prisoners while they are in prison the first time. This has happened so many times that the community demanded
change in our prison system from our Legislators and community leaders.
So, in usual fashion we passed a new law last year that: 1) doesn't do
anything to keep people safe from people getting out of prison, and 2)
doesn't do anything to help people grow, find their purpose, gain new skills
or understand the impact of their crimes on victims in an effort to prevent
more tragedy, and 3) Only makes the punishment more stiff AFTER each new
tragedy.
This short-sighted bill, called Truth in Sentencing is a duplicate of a bill that
is being repealed in other places where it’s been enacted, because it makes prison systems more violent for staff and prisoners by overcrowding the prisons with
people who have no hope or incentive to grow.
I'm asking you to step back and see the big picture. The community has often failed these people when they were children. Those children grew up and became offenders, who became prisoners. This is a call to action for citizen engagement. The potential for lasting transformation and a much-needed change in the current South Dakota correctional system is real and relevant. I am calling for South Dakota citizens to apply for jobs or volunteer at the prison. Today.
As a current inmate in the South Dakota prison system, I am here to tell you that the prison where I reside, my home, is broken and it affects you everyday as well. Almost all of my neighbors are going to be your neighbors soon. What kind of neighbors do you want?
As this system collapses under its own ineptitude I see it as an opportunity to replace the unhealthy, aggressive, callous, short-sighted, reactive
(never proactive), poor communicators working in this system now with people from our community who have respect, empathy, and a real ambition to bring a positive transformation to this dysfunctional system. We need people who understand that
by transforming lives here, you transform the outcomes once prisoners go home. Simply said, changing lives in here saves lives out there.
I ask that you approach this situation with patience and awareness that people generally end up in prison not because we're truly bad people, but merely people who have made mistakes. The overwhelming majority of us come from poverty, lacked healthy familial guidance, were bereft of opportunities to better ourselves, were raised in the foster care system, have suffered multiple traumas, and were ourselves victims of crime in our youth, which is the number one predictor for criminality in one’s life. We are all broken and are in various stages of needing to heal and grow. We cannot do this without the help of the system that is using your tax dollars and says they'll correct our behavior, but is really just a warehouse for lost souls and offers no remedy.
We need staff and volunteers to teach and model the behaviors that only you, productive members of society, exhibit. Society is plagued by the mindset that uncomfortable problems are someone else’s to solve. To be clear, there is a role that you, the members of this community, can play to be part of the solution. Left as it is today, your role may instead end up being someone’s victim, or worse a helpless bystander who missed your chance to jump in and change outcomes. You have the ability to help deal with this problem personally, and I truly feel that if the community does not respond, then they are partially responsible for the next preventable tragedy. You are a member of a community that is confronted daily with the reality of the Dept. of Corrections’ failure to restore its prisoners back into anything close to a good
neighbor. Virtually everyone in the community has a family member or knows someone who is currently incarcerated.
Transformation in prisoners is not possible without transforming our prison system. By filling the vacant positions here with brave, compassionate people who understand the real role correctional officers are supposed to fill, you can make a real difference in the quality of life for everyone in our state.
Prison is the place society sends us when we break the law. "Not my kid, Not my problem" seems to be the pervasive sentiment... and that flies until it doesn't, until your car gets jacked or someone
sells your kid bad drugs and they overdose. Then of course the community is up in arms, looking around, asking why nobody did anything. You have the opportunity to step into a
new role - a second chance at being that mentor, that role model or life coach to an adult in need who didn’t get that as a child, made some wrong turns, and needs to start over.
I know it’s a tall order, and it will be very difficult. To enter this prison today as a new officer you will not be trained to mentor or guide prisoners. You will be trained with the mindset of the system that is folding in on itself. You will be told that every prisoner is a dangerous, deceptive liar and that your only job is to go home alive. You will not be allowed to help us find our purpose, learn practical skills, or offer
much-needed guidance right away.- This is where I need you to think as long-term as I do about this. Your first year will be as a lowly correctional officer, relegated to doing your rounds and maintains safety and order, but you will be regularly interacting with prisoners. However, opportunities for advancement will always present themselves, and you can rise through the ranks, bringing with you your communication skills, your empathy, your patience, and your ability to implement change.
That is what this system needs:. a rapid and robust influx of decent people to come help us create an environment where people who come to prison can leave better people than they were when they arrived. Come, help us fix our system so we can slow the steady leak of broken people being sent out to your neighborhoods. Come, help us bring about the change that
we all need!
Here’s what’s happening right now at the State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.The prison on the hill is 100 officers short of a full crew, which means we
are constantly getting locked down so tight that all classes and even religious activities are concelled, out-of-cell time is cancelled, showers get cancelled, and our meals are brought to our cells. Our Special Housing Unit - an entire floor - did not get to go outside one single day last year in 2023. How do you suppose they're doing?
These conditions are acting as
grave barriers to change, and the opportunity being presented by those unfilled positions is real and tangible. We have the chance to fill this place with the right
people to bring about not just the transformation of prisoners, or of the
prison system itself, but of the level of safety in your community as well. This is your
chance to do something most people talk about but don't know how to do - truly change a broken system. Step up to the challenge. Public Safety starts here.
I'm asking you to step back and see the big picture. The community failed
the children. The children grew up and become prisoners. Prison
administrators have not trained their staff to take an active role in helping people grow. The Legislature stripped, slashed, and gutted recidivism-reducing programing. Prison administrators knowingly returned broken
people to society and far too often there are tragic outcomes. The
community, repeatedly violated, have demanded action from community leaders.
Those same leaders repeatedly fail to address the roots of the problem and
have supported a solution proven to make matters worse, remanding people to prison for a longer version of the same destructive feedback loop..These are the facts, so to any community leaders reading this, lose the talking point of "The
pendulum swing of criminal justice" because in this state, in this system, the pendulum has yet to swing towards responsible decision making.
This cycle will continue until the system changes. The system is made of people, members of our communities who, if they believe in themselves and step up, have the ability to be part of the solution.
We need brave people who have done the work on themselves, have an understanding and heart for.
the enormity of this vast undertaking, and are willing to show up one by one to
serve their community, as paid staff or volunteers, or if that’s not possible, by working in their neighborhood mentoring at-risk youth. Either way I'm calling on you, our former and future neighbors, to help people heal and grow so we can reduce the number of people who are hurting themselves and endangering the community at large.
