Upon the release Friday of the 2022 Crime in South Dakota report, Jackley announced that crime went down a little bit last year:
South Dakota law enforcement agencies reported the number of total criminal offenses during 2022 were 68,768, which is slightly down from 69,430 in 2021. There were 36,390 arrests made in 2022, which is also a decrease from 38,160 recorded in 2021 [Attorney General Marty Jackley, press release, 2023.08.04].
But were South Dakota’s really safer? We actually had more really bad crimes:
Law enforcement agencies reported that the more serious crimes, which include such crimes as homicides, sex offenses and aggravated assaults, totaled 48,134 offenses in 2022, compared to 46,485 in 2021. The number of less serious offenses, which include such crimes as DUI and disorderly conduct, were 20,634 in 2022, compared to 22,945 in 2021 [Jackley, 2023.08.04].
Fewer DUIs and drug arrests, but more beatings and murders; fewer rapes, but more kids arrested—kind of a mixed bag for the integrity of our social fabric.
So, what’s not to like about six (seven? eight?) month winters, rampant racism, chilling effects on civil rights, an extremist legislature, living in a chemical toilet, sacrifice zone, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area?
In 2018 it was determined that the annual criminal costs of video lootery in South Dakota have soared to $42 million and the social costs an estimated $62 million. $9 million were lost because state and local sales taxes weren’t collected. When video lootery began in 1986 104 charges were filed for robbery, grand theft and aggravated theft. There were 1,037 cases in 1990 and in 2017 they went past 4,000 yet South Dakota continues to raise revenues off those least able to pay.
Despite lies from the South Dakota Republican Party video lootery, suicide, domestic violence and homelessness are inextricably linked putting children at risk to more catastrophic consequences far more often than has happened in states that have legalized or lessened penalties for casual use of cannabis.
Matt Walz works for Keystone Treatment Center, the only inpatient gambling addiction treatment center in South Dakota and has been told the best place addicts can buy meth is at the bars with video lootery terminals. “’As for suicide,’ Walz continued, ‘compulsive gamblers have the highest rate of suicide than any other addiction.’” In 2020 the Rapid City Police Department took their complaints to the public because it was overwhelmed with crimes of opportunity driven by meth and gambling. Even the extreme white wing of the South Dakota Republican Party has called video lootery a “scourge.”
Now, according to WalletHub, gambling has become a leading source of anguish and despair in my home state with few avenues for treatment. South Dakota is tied with Nevada in the number of casinos and machines and second in overall addiction to the poison.
The reasoning is hardly mysterious. It’s all about the money a too big to jail banking racket, a medical industry triopoly, prostitution, the Sturgis Rally, policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the SDGOP destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule.
DUI nimbers dropped likely because authorities stopped intox checks on magat pols like Ravnsborg, imho.
I get beatings being up, because it does seem like there are more fellows out there asking for a good beating, but not a killing. I have to wonder what the percentage change in beatings and killings is.
Perhaps I’ll feed that data into grudznAIck and have some analysis generated, or just hand it over to my granddaughter’s boyfriend who is pretty handy with the computer math business and do some actual analysis. Although, it’s probably no more “analysis” than it is math. Basic math. Kind of how like the “research” the legislatures does is more like conglomerating information and knowledge from others.
BAH. It’s just basic math, and beatings are up, as they should be.
First, the disclosure from the Report:
“Note: Due to ongoing technical issues with the record management system used by a majority of SD Local Law
Enforcement agencies, we did not receive some 2022 incident data by the time this publication was finalized.”
So, we have no idea the true accuracy (it seems we’re comparing partial 2022 stats to full 2021 (& previous years’) stats in this report).
With that, it’s interesting that Drug arrests are supposedly down (reportedly some ~40% since 2018), and yet many of the crimes typically associated with drug use are way up, like: auto thefts, robbery, weapons violations, prostitution, embezzlement, larceny, etc.
I live in a town that is “graced” with a county jail, a state pen annex, and a federal prison.
And the prison-industrial-complex doesn’t seem to be working in South Dakota.
Many of the inmates released here (whom then have to stay here) have been convicted of drug crimes, and most I know go right back to the same habits (including criminal activity resultant of that abusive drug use).
It seems the system may be doing far more damage than good (unless you manage one of the companies that relies on inmate labor, since the work-release program seems very well structured to focus more on providing cheap labor).
South Dakota’s recidivism rate:
2022 – 40.3%
39% of both male (621) and female (199) parolees ended their parole as a TPV (technical parole violator).
12.5% of offenders return with a new conviction.
I’ve lived in a lot of places, from the West Coast to East Coast, from the North to South, and never have I encountered so many ex-cons as I have in South Dakota.
Nor have I met so many people that assume everyone is a criminal (a consequence of that P-I-C).
And many for relatively minor crimes, the incarceration of which seems to lead to potential for greater future criminal activity.
South Dakotans have built a prison for themselves.
Sure, many of the convicts may be behind bars, but you’re all imprisoned by that socio-enviroment.