Unifying Against the Crime Invasion

Stop the out of state homeless invasion and improve prisoner reentry locations and policies?

It is interesting to observe the non-stop push to provide a few corporations and wealthy individuals special deals that are not in the best interest of the citizens (taxpayers). Sometimes we are asked to pay for fancy buildings, other times companies want to take our land, and regularly we are asked to accept more crime.

We are told all kinds of stories to justify the crime. It is just a normal part of growth, they say. But based on our experiences recently, we wonder. Is it always an outcome of growth or is it only related to taxpayer-funded handouts? There is a myth that it is centralized in city centers. There is crime in many small towns whether it is a shooting in Hartford or Canton or a house or barn break-in on a farm. On Thursday a businessman spoke (at the prison meeting) about how many times his business has been robbed recently. The crime he is experiencing in the small town of Worthing is every bit as bad, if not worse, as what people are experiencing in downtown Sioux Falls. So it seems to be EVERYWHERE.

Something is wrong.

Yes, we are allowing large companies to bring in foreign workers and pay them below a living wage and then expect their families (often larger) to stay out of crime. Then we have about 85% of the male prisoners reentering society (about 850 men each year) through Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties (this is an approximate number based on the 2024 DOC report and word of mouth because we have not been able to get actual information from the DOC).

Many of these prisoners are not from the eastern part of the state. One has to wonder why they are being forced to serve time or do reentry so far from home? Wouldn’t it be better for them to go through that process where there is a support network (closer to home)?

And while these reentry people may attend parole meetings in the downtown area of Sioux Falls many of them end up in the outlying areas (Canton, Brandon, Worthing, Crooks, Hartford, etc). Sadly about 50% of the people who are reentering society will commit a crime again within three years of leaving prison. In 10 years, that is upward of 4250 people committing crimes (sometimes committing multiple crimes) in these two counties alone.

On top of this reentry problem, there appears to be pressure to import prisoners and put them someplace in the Sioux Falls Metro Area. No one is really sure if it is 600, 1500, or some different number? Where on earth will all these people come from? And how will we handle all that reentry crime in two counties?

If it is an additional 1500 prisoners, that would mean an additional 500 men would reenter society in these two counties each year (with about a 50% recidivism rate, 250 of them will commit crimes again). In 10 years, that would mean we could have upward of 2500 people committing crimes in these two counties, or upward of 6750 total crimes, between what we have now and the additions.

Also, there seems to be some type of undercover effort to import homeless people to our state. We are not sure if it is non-profits that want to increase their revenue streams or something else, but there are now people wandering around our city centers with suitcases. While these people start in Sioux Falls or Rapid City, they quickly migrate beyond the downtown areas to surrounding communities. It seems like the solution is to keep the homeless migrants out of our state all together so we don’t have to worry about them going between our communities and creating crime and overloading our social systems. After all they should be the wards of their own states not ours.

It’s as if we are being slowly cooked and told not to notice. If we continue down this path, the Sioux Falls Metro Area will become Minneapolis and the Rapid City Metro Area could become the next St. Louis. Imagine the taxpayer costs and the horrific changes to our state.

At this point, we are in a critical situation. Rather than siloing into rural/town and city contingents, we should be working together to get the situation under control. The Sioux Falls Metro area is not able to handle any more prisoners, either reentry or in prisons. We need to add some capacity on the west side of the state and spread out reentry so we have fewer people in each location and they have a greater chance of success. For example, if there were two other locations (Yankton and Rapid City, for example) and each took 1/3 of the load, we would all be better off (the citizens and the people going through reentry).

Also, one would think we might be able to disrupt the crime networks with less concentration in one area which should help all of us with recidivism. Then we should stop welcoming homeless people from other states and strongly discourage companies from hiring foreign workers (they are overloading our schools and social systems).

Let’s continue to unify. We are all in this together and we need sane solutions that support our communities and our families.