By Northern Plains News
South Dakota’s prison population has grown nearly six fold from 1980 to 2013, according to a study by the Sentencing Project.
In 1980, 609 people were incarcerated in South Dakota prisons. In 2011, the latest figures available, 3,530 men and women were imprisoned in the state.
These figures do not include people in South Dakota county jails.
While South Dakota’s numbers have grown dramatically, so have the number of people imprisoned nationally.
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During the same 30-year period, there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of prisoners in the United States, which now stands at 2.2 million people.
Though South Dakota has a higher incarceration rate than neighboring states, it still has lower imprisonment and jailing rates than the national average. The state’s imprisonment rate is 434 people per 100,000 population, compared to the national rate of 480 per 100,000.
Nationally, the Sentencing Project says there are 2,239,800 people in prison and 1,512,391 in jail.
The group also says South Dakota has 6,819 people on probation and 2,764 on parole.
