Fight at maximum security unit precedes tour by state's prison work group
The sign for the Jameson Prison Annex in Sioux Falls, pictured on April 1, 2025. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS — The South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation is looking into a fight at the maximum security wing of the state prison in Sioux Falls that broke out less than 48 hours before a planned tour of the building by a 22-member prison work group.
It's unclear how many people were involved, how long the fighting took place before being brought under control, or how badly anyone was hurt.
Staff 'contained' the fight, and no one's life is in danger as a result of their injuries, the Department of Corrections said.
'That incident is under investigation. DCI has been notified of the fight,' spokesman Michael Winder wrote in an email to South Dakota Searchlight.
Work group aims to ditch baggage, find solutions in prison talks
The Project Prison Reset work group is set to convene at 8 a.m. Wednesday for tours of the South Dakota State Penitentiary and Jameson Annex. It's the first portion of a two-day meeting that also includes public presentations and public comments on Thursday at the Military Heritage Alliance in Sioux Falls.
The group's mission is to find consensus on whether the state needs new prison facilities. Gov. Larry Rhoden appointed lawmakers, law enforcement representatives, a judge and other stakeholders to the group in late February, after the Legislature shot down an attempt to finalize funding for a proposed 1,500-bed men's prison in Lincoln County. Had it been approved, the $825 million prison campus would have been the most expensive taxpayer-funded building project in state history. It was meant to largely replace the penitentiary, a pre-statehood complex built in 1881.
The work group will tour the Lincoln County site, located 14 miles south of Sioux Falls, at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
The Monday fighting broke out in the Jameson Annex, a building erected in 1993 that was home to 473 inmates as of Feb. 28. In addition to housing the state's highest-security inmates, Jameson has the Sioux Falls prison complex's administrative segregation and mental health units and intake unit. All men admitted to the DOC for any level of crime spend time in the intake 'fish tank' to be assessed before being assigned a cell in one of the state's various housing facilities.
Wealth of controversies, outbreaks of violence spark questions on prison oversight
The Jameson Annex remains on lockdown status after the fight, Winder said Tuesday. He did not say if any correctional officers were among the injured, if any of the injured were transported to the hospital for care, or note which area or areas of the facility where the fight occurred.
Winder did not say if the ongoing investigation would keep members of the prison task force out of the building, and did not immediately respond to follow-up questions on the matter.
Tony Mangan, spokesman for the Division of Criminal Investigation, said the agency will work to determine the number of people involved and how the incident began.
'The investigation is ongoing,' Mangan said.
Attorney General Marty Jackley, who oversees the DCI, is a member of the prison work group, but he won't be on hand for its first meeting. He's in Pierre this week for the trial of Lonna Carroll, a former Department of Social Services employee accused of embezzling from the state.
The state's prison system has struggled with a host of security incidents since March of 2024. Two days of unrest broke out at the penitentiary following the temporary shutdown of tablet-based inmate communications with family members that month. One correctional officer was injured in the first of those incidents.
A few months later, fighting broke out at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, which required outside medical care for some inmate victims. Prisoners called out to reporters the following day to express their worries of further violence.
Near the end of the summer, the DOC announced an indefinite lockdown at the penitentiary for what turned out to be a weekslong lockdown in search of contraband. Officers dismantled the campus sweat lodges during the search. After the lockdown ended, Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko showed lawmakers images of knives fashioned from nail files and Plexiglas, a tattoo gun, mobile Wi-Fi hotspots and bags of homemade alcohol.
During debate on the Lincoln County prison proposal, last year and this year, Wasko argued that the penitentiary is unsafe and unsuited for continued use as offender housing.
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