SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Eventually, a new men’s prison will go up in Sioux Falls. But conversations about how better days can follow a sentence will take place well before then. South Dakota Lieutenant Gov. Tony Venhuizen, who will chair the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force, says the group’s first meeting Wednesday will establish where rehabilitation is in 2025.
“What programs do we offer now, what are the skilled, technical trades that are being offered, what education programs, drug and alcohol rehab and so forth?” Venhuizen said Tuesday. “Before you can talk about where you want to be or how you want to change, you need to understand where you’re starting from.”
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For both Venhuizen and Kadyn Wittman of Sioux Falls, who is one of several state lawmakers on the 30-person task force, there is a real energy to help boost someone’s chances for success once they’re eventually an ex-inmate.
“There’s a common sense element of it that has emerged across all legislators, regardless of which side of the aisle you sit on,” Wittman said Tuesday. “We took a hard look at the numbers and how much it both fiscally costs us to incarcerate at the level that we do but also morally.”…