skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

New SD Billboards Call Attention to Incarceration Rates

play audio
Play

Monday, August 6, 2018   

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A new billboard on a busy Sioux Falls street is part of the ACLU of South Dakota's Smart Justice reform campaign, ahead of the November election.

South Dakota corrections officials have acknowledged that they're struggling to manage a growing prison population due to the state's methamphetamine epidemic.

But Libby Skarin, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, says the billboard campaign makes the point that locking more people up is neither an effective solution nor a good use of taxpayer money.

"We know that our women's prison in Pierre has a record number of inmates and that, generally speaking, we're locking up more and more people in South Dakota,” she points out. “And if we keep going down this road, we're going to have to build new prisons."

The campaign's first billboard is located on North Minnesota Avenue, with the message, "People Not Prisons."

Skarin says the ACLU has also purchased digital billboards from Aug. 13 through the Nov. 6 election, at locations in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

Native Americans make up 9 percent of South Dakota's population, but 33 percent of the prison population. And only 2 percent of South Dakotans are African American, but they represent more than 7 percent of people incarcerated.

Skarin notes that many factors go into those incarcerations.

"We want to bring attention to and address the profound connection of crime to issues like mental health, addiction, employment, education and housing," she states.

The state will elect a new attorney general this fall, and Skarin says the ACLU wants to make sure voters know the importance of that race, and how much influence the office has over what happens within the criminal justice system.

"The attorney general has a really critical role to play, and a lot of power, so we want people to recognize that they are also constituents of the attorney general, and that they should be communicating their views to him or her," she stresses.

Candidates for attorney general include Democrat Randy Seiler and Republican Jason Ravnsborg.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021