By Dave Baumeister
County correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – This week, the Minnehaha County Commissioners recognized May 5 – 11 as National Correction Officers and Employees Week during their Tuesday meeting.
Jamie Gravett, Director of the Juvenile Detention Center, read the proclamation citing the work done by county correctional workers.
Jail Warden, Mike Mattson, said, “We have amazing correctional officers who deal with a lot of things people don’t want to deal with.
“And they do it professionally.”
The proclamation led off a meeting which dealt mostly with law enforcement issues.
Robin Houwman, presiding judge of the Second Judicial District of South Dakota gave her annual report on the circuit’s operations.
She explained that the Second District heard, by far, the largest number of cases, with 34% (26,493) of the state’s total 180,159 cases.
Of the seven judicial districts, the Second District is the smallest by land area and the largest by population, comprising just Minnehaha and Lincoln Counties.
In contrast, the second largest district covers 14 counties in east-central South Dakota which make up the Third Circuit.
Last year, this circuit heard just under 11, 000 cases, or 15%.
Looking at how Minnehaha County’s money was spent, Houwman told commissioners that the Second Circuit had 14 circuit judges and five magistrate judges.
She also explained that the circuit did a good deal of its work outside of just hearing adult criminal cases. They also dealt with juvenile/Children in Need of Support cases, mental health cases and psychological evaluations.
She added that these psych evaluations are done for competency hearings, sex offences and some juvenile issues.
She also pointed out the need for interpreters increased over 2022.
Last year, they needed interpreters for 51 different languages for an average of 15.2 cases per day.
Houwman’s briefing paired well with a similar presentation by State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar on what his office had done in 2023.
He gave a breakdown of his office staff, having 38 attorneys and 31 staff members (paralegals, victim witness assistants, office assistants, investigators, and digital discovery technicians).
Haggar said that while felonies in the county were up 2% in 2023, the most severe crimes, murders, were way down.
Last year, there was only one homicide in Minnehaha County.
Although he said that even one homicide was too many, the lack of those types of cases allowed his staff to have more time to devote to other cases.
He also talked about the county’s partnership with the University of South Dakota Law School, in providing programs that often times would end up bringing young people to work here.
He explained a main goal of the office is to “recruit, train and retain” employees.
Haggar also told commissioners about the juvenile diversion program with the State’s Attorney’s office.
Juvenile diversion is a phrase used for a program that takes youth who have committed a particular crime and gets them into programs that will help them not commit the same crime again.
He showed figures of how this programming had helped between 2022 and 2023. He claimed an 85% success rate for the program in the last year.
Commissioner Dean Karsky asked Haggar what he considered a “successful diversion,” and he explained that is when the juvenile offender does not re-offend with the same crime.
Commissioner Joe Kippley added that even with plans for a new Juvenile Justice Center coming together, “a success would be to see that facility empty.”
He commended Haggar and his staff and the way they were working to keep juveniles out of these facilities.
There will not be a County Commission meeting on May 14, and the next meeting will be at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, May 21, in the third-floor meeting room of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
