In March, the number of female inmates was 443.
The family house was re-opened last month, but the trendline still points upward. In February, the South Dakota Women’s Prison had to put inmates in a family-style house on the prison grounds that had previously been used to allow well-behaved inmates to visit their kids on the weekend.ĭOC Secretary Denny Kaemingk said the ingestion statute was partially behind the uptick in inmates that forced the temporary housing shift (he got some pushback for that). More felons are receiving probation, but prison beds are still used for drug addicts. In 2015 alone, there were 670 convictions for ingestion alone and 1,076 for drug possession. What is clear is that felony convictions are up since 2013, and drug felonies make up 78 percent of the increase. About 15 percent of the adult prison population is there for drug possession alone, and while it’s unclear how many of those inmates were sentenced for ingestion alone.
There’s a lot of debate about the degree, but there’s little doubt that it makes a difference. What impact do felony possession laws have on the prison system? A person with a misdemeanor conviction can be punished for continuing to use and monitored in the community, but they won’t end up in a prison bed. A felony convict can be sent to prison as a sanction for continued drug use. An offender charged with a felony can’t vote or own a gun, and their options for work or safe housing drop dramatically. “This is a really tricky area to make any declaratory statements like that,” Lawrence said.įelonies can send you to prison. Courts have generally ruled that it takes more than a drug test to make a conviction, she said, but there are plenty of scenarios where post-consumption charges are possible, such as when a user swallows a baggie of drugs. Definitions of possession vary enough from state-to-state that ingestion can become a drug charge, according to Alison Lawrence of the National Conference of State Legislatures. He says other states have different laws, but that police don’t let drug users walk if they’ve smoked, snorted or spiked their stash just before the cops show up in every state that isn’t South Dakota. Is South Dakota the only state with a felony ingestion law?ĭefense attorneys say yes, and that’s because South Dakota is the only state to specifically say the existence of drugs in the body is a felony crime Utah has a similar law, but it’s about consumption, and last year the penalty was dropped to a misdemeanor.Īttorney General Marty Jackley doesn’t agree.
The state Supreme Court upheld the law in State vs. The ingestion law first appeared in 2001 as an “altered states” law. Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking about South Dakota’s drug laws Police and prosecutors see repealing or weakening the ingestion statute as akin to letting criminals get away with drug possession.Īnother shot came this week, when the Urban Institute released a report saying the benefits of South Dakota’s 2013 criminal justice reforms could be erased if the laws don’t change. Make ingestion and possession of small amounts of controlled substances a misdemeanor, the report warned South Dakota, or you might lose the gains you’ve made. In South Dakota, there’s no legal difference between drugs in your pocket and drugs in your urine.ĭefense lawyers say putting someone in prison for a failed drug test is overly harsh, costly for the justice system and an ineffective way to fight drug abuse and keep people safe.
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