RAPID CITY (AP) -- A $5.6 million permanent minimum-security prison is opening in Rapid City, after more than eight years of planning and construction and a legal battle that ended up before the South Dakota Supreme Court.
Officials on Tuesday dedicated the Black Hills Correctional Transition Center, built to house inmates who are being transitioned back into society. It can house more than 400 inmates, which is four times as many as the city's temporary minimum-security facility could hold.
"They're low-risk inmates; they're ready for release back into the community," said Brett Krenzke, a manager at the prison.
Inmates are to move in by the end of the month.
"We have a fairly large population that are incarcerated from this part of the state that need this facility to prepare themselves and be a successful stepping stone as they enter the next stage of their lives," said Darwin Weeldreyer, director of community service for the state Department of Corrections. "We're not a fix-all, but we work very hard to give them the tools (with which) they can go out and succeed.
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"They can go into the community, look for jobs, re-acclimate with their families, and they're not doing it from 300 miles away," he said.
In 2010, a landowner near the prison site said the state violated the law by failing to hold required public hearings before buying the land. Both a circuit judge and state Supreme Court justices disagreed, and last year state lawmakers finalized funding for the project.
"We're looking forward to getting settled in," Krenzke said. "Eight years is a long time to wait, but in the end it was well worth the wait."
