Governor Larry Rhoden has booked Iowa’s deputy director of institutional operations Nick Lamb to replace freshly resigned and much maligned South Dakota Corrections Secretary Kellie Wasko.
Nick Lamb’s résumé is mostly Illinois, with bounces to New Mexico and Iowa—and now South Dakota—since 2020. His top-line LinkedIn Likes are mostly Jesusy stuff, so expect him to turn the other cheek when the prisoners start mouthing off to him…
…which, says former warden and interim DOC chief Doug Weber, was the big problem with Wasko’s management of South Dakota’s prisons:
Weber is critical of Wasko’s decision to end “insolence” infractions. He said this led to a loss of control over the inmates. Allowing prisoners to be disrespectful to staff is like allowing high school students to be irreverent to teachers or administrators. It’s going to encourage the bad apples to push further, he said.
“Under my watch, if an officer told an inmate it’s time to go lock up in your cell, the inmate did that. And if they didn’t, there would be consequences,” Weber said.
He said not all inmates are going to be doing drugs, getting into fights and attacking officers. Most of them just want to keep quiet and serve their time. But there’s a small number that want to cause problems. And where they see a relaxing of the rules, they see an opportunity.
“Wasco has turned the prison over to the inmates,” Weber said [Kevin Killough, “Former Employees Say DOC Isn’t Ready for the New Prison,” South Dakota News Watch, 2025.10.20].
We’ll see what approach Lamb takes to the panoply of problems in South Dakota’s prisons when he starts his new job in mid-November.