On Tuesday, the Department of Social Services reported its performance measures to the Government Operations and Audit Committee. Among its successes, DSS reports beating its targets in service through the 988 suciide/crisis hotline:
DSS says 98% of callers who need “Someone to Talk to” are stabilized via 988 and need no further service delivery, beating the DSS target of 90%. 76% of callers who need “Someone to Respond” get the help the need in the moment through a virtual crisis response, beating the DSS target of 65%.
The 988 hotline, implemented four years ago, appears to be reducing the nationwide suicide rate. But that national trend and DSS’s claimed success rates haven’t reversed a long upward trend in South Dakotans killing themselves:
South Dakota recorded 198 suicides in 2024, up 10 percent from 180 a year earlier, while its age-adjusted suicide rate ranked fifth-highest in the nation, according to federal and state data.
The South Dakota Department of Health’s annual suicide report confirmed the year-over-year increase.
The state’s age-adjusted rate was 22 deaths per 100,000 residents. Only Alaska, Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico ranked higher. Of South Dakota’s deaths, 117 involved firearms, or 59.1 percent.
The increase ran counter to the national trend. The U.S. suicide rate slipped from 14.2 per 100,000 in 2022 to 13.7 in 2024. At 22 per 100,000, South Dakota’s age-adjusted rate was about 61 percent above the national rate [Todd Epp, “South Dakota Suicide Rate Ranks Fifth-Highest as Deaths Rise 10 Percent,” Northern Plains News, 2026.09.09].
The 988 hotline may save lives, and DSS may be doing a lot of good for the people who call, but DSS may now need to get more South Dakotans to call 988 before doing something regrettable.
It’s just hard. No answers here. I’ve lost many and I’m sure everyone has.
Maybe AI could have some use here. You’d still want people operating the actual hotline. However, having a test line might be a worthwhile. It could be used in health class so kids have an idea of what to expect when they call. It could also give peope in crisis a test run on what they want to say if they’re nervous about calling. We introverts don’t like talking on the phone.
They could put a 1-2 min time limit on the test line.
Yes, the state that calls itself conservative depends on federal Social Security benefits to pay the property taxes that bankroll ecocide and pay the bulk of South Dakota’s bills while video lootery drives poor residents even further into despair. 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.”
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.
https://973kkrc.com/south-dakota-gambling-addiction/
Few policymakers dispute the reasons educated people are fleeing my home state of South Dakota. The state’s governor is a reactionary cracker. Infrastructure is crumbling. Industrial agriculture is smothering wildlife habitat. Churches are girding for gun violence. Meth has replaced alcohol as the state’s drug of choice. Pierre’s culture of corruption and attacks on kids have ended open government. Native wildlife are being exterminated to make way for disease-ridden domestic livestock and exotic fowl. Jails far outnumber colleges. Bankers continue to enslave landowners and the state’s medical industry triopoly operates without scrutiny.
https://www.keloland.com/news/local-news/sd-faces-rising-food-insecurity-how-you-can-help/