Governor Larry Rhoden and his hand-picked Corrections Secretary Nick Lamb canned the warden of the state penitentiary and two other Corrections leaders on Wednesday. Out are warden Joseph Roemmich, who lasted little more than a year, Director of Prison Operations Amber Pirraglia, and prison administrative Major Cody Hanson. Lamb and Rhoden have promoted Tabatha Benting from running the Jameson Annex to run the entire pen, making her the fifth warden there since 2021.
Seeing the ongoing leadership churn, Corrections-keen Representative Kadyn Wittman (D-15/Sioux Falls), rightly expresses concern that the system is losing institutional knowledge:
Rep. Kadyn Wittman, D-Sioux Falls, is chair of the state’s Corrections Commission. The group is meant to offer guidance on corrections policy, and to approve any spending decisions on prison industries.
The loss of so many leaders is a concern for Wittman. Beyond the wardens, other long-term employees — including Doug Clark, the former deputy corrections secretary who served as interim warden after Young’s departure — have left the prison system over the past five years.
“There’s no real institutional knowledge left,” Wittman said.
Wittman would like to see the commission move toward monthly meetings and address questions about leadership and institutional knowledge, as well as employee retention more broadly… [John Hult, “South Dakota State Penitentiary Loses Fourth Warden in Five Years amid Senior Staff Shake-Up,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.08.05].
Preserving the knowledge gained by experienced prison leaders and passing that knowledge on to everyone else staffing the Department of Corrections and to new staff coming in is essential to making South Dakota’s prisons run well. It’s also vital to making sure the new penitentiary the state is building in Sioux Falls and the reforms coming from the Governor’s Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force improve South Dakota Corrections. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. You can’t get to good solutions if you don’t know what problems exist and what may already of been tried that failed to solve those problems.
Convening Rep. Wittman’s Corrections Commission more frequently would capture more of Corrections’ institutional knowledge, put it on the record for the public, and put it in the hands of the legislators and other members of the public who serve on that commission who might well stick around longer than some of the prison leaders whom they should oversee. Experienced and frequently informed commission members could then listen to new reports and proposals from new wardens and other Corrections officials and say, “Wait a minute—didn’t we already try that a few years ago?”
Of course, we could also improve institutional knowledge by hiring wardens who are good enough to hold the job for more than a year, but Secretary Lamb and Governor Rhoden will have to figure that one out on their own.
I think the problem is more a lack of creative thinking from the Governor on down about the justice and corrections system, and the education system.. South Dakota incarcerates far too many folks and once they’re in the system they provide little hope for a future. And its a question of budget priorities When you shortchange dollars for a good education you end up paying huge amounts for an overbuilt prison.
These fellows who got canned were probably too soft. More public punishment will discourage miscreants.
Anyone who believes in punishment over rehabilitation has no heart or soul. And I feel sorry for their spouse and children.
We are all born with a clean slate. We learn from our families and social environment. When we do bad things, we can learn why and change those behaviors, if we have the motivation to do so. Families and our social networks are our support systems, not enemies.
Too many people are in prison, and too many people are judgmental instead of understanding about their situation. Everyone has a story and no one asked to be born into family sagas.
I’ve seen more young lives ruined in this state compared to anywhere else I’ve been. Punishment does not work.
Hanson and Benting were both nepo hires – their whole families have been working at the pen for decades. So institutional knowledge won’t be lost – it’ll just be mostly the bad institutional knowledge of “how we’ve always done things.”
BTW, Grudz, take a dog that misbehaves, put it in a kennel 24/7, and kick it regularly for no good reason but because you feel like it, feed it once a day with the worst food you can find, and shove the kennel in the dark for 12 hours every night. Keep this up for a couple of years. Then let it out and see how friendly and well behaved it is. It’ll go for your throat, and understandably so.
Also, public punishment discourages miscreants the same way that public punishment discouraged teenage sex and adultery throughout the ages: rarely.