South Dakota

South Dakota’s prisons are run by the South Dakota Department of Corrections (SD DOC), a small system. People in custody are assigned a DOC number and located through the SD DOC Offender Locator. (South Dakota’s own materials use the term “offender”; this guide uses plain language.)

This section details the three prisons that hold sentenced adults: the South Dakota State Penitentiary (Sioux Falls), the oldest and the maximum-custody flagship; the Mike Durfee State Prison (Springfield), a men’s general-population prison; and the South Dakota Women’s Prison (Pierre), the state’s only women’s prison. The State Penitentiary complex includes the G. Norton Jameson Annex, which holds the maximum-custody and statewide men’s reception (Admissions and Orientation) units — it is covered on the State Penitentiary page rather than separately.

Several lower-custody facilities are part of the system but are not individually covered here: the minimum-custody work-release centers in Sioux Falls, Yankton, and Rapid City, the Pierre Community Work Center, and a set of contracted community and reentry beds. A new 1,500-bed men’s prison is under construction in northeast Sioux Falls; the state broke ground in 2026 and expects to open it around 2029 to replace the aging State Penitentiary. Until then, the arrangements described here apply.

Where a newly sentenced person enters depends on sex. Men are received at the State Penitentiary complex in Sioux Falls, where the Jameson Annex houses the Admissions and Orientation unit for everyone entering SD DOC custody. Women are received at the South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre.

South Dakota has an active death penalty. The men’s death row and the state execution chamber are at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls; the most recent execution was in 2019. No other South Dakota prison holds a death row.

A few features shape how families stay in touch. Incoming personal mail is scanned and delivered to a tablet rather than handed over on paper — South Dakota adopted this to keep drug-soaked paper out of the prisons — and, unlike many states, the scanning is done in-house, so mail is still addressed to the facility’s own address (there is no out-of-state mail vendor). Legal mail and publisher-direct books still go to the facility. Phones, tablets, and video visits run through ViaPath (the GTL/ConnectNetwork system); the method for adding money to a trust account is best confirmed with the DOC. Health care is provided in-house by DOC Health Services, with specialty and telehealth care through the Avera health system.

Use the guides below for the statewide rules, or go straight to a specific facility.