South Dakota Prisons

Clicking on any of the South Dakota facilities below will direct you to an information page with Inmate Search, Visitation, Mail, Phone, Email, Most Wanted and FAQ for families and friends.

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South Dakota Department of Corrections - Prisons & Inmate Search

South Dakota State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

The stone walls of the South Dakota State Penitentiary on the north side of Sioux Falls date back to 1881, eight years before statehood, when it opened as a territorial prison. Prisoners quarried the rock for its yard wall in the 1890s. Today the penitentiary is part of the South Dakota Department of Corrections (SDDOC), which was created in July 1989 to replace the old Board of Charities and Corrections that had overseen prisons since 1890.

SDDOC runs eight state facilities and contracts with a few local jails and programs. On June 30, 2023, the date of its most recent detailed statistical report, the prison population was 3,595, including 567 women. Women make up about 16% of the total, a high share, and most are serving time for nonviolent drug offenses.

South Dakota State Penitentiary, Sioux Falls (Level IV): the historic main prison, home to death row and the execution chamber
Jameson Prison Annex, Sioux Falls (Level V): the state’s highest-security unit for men, opened in 1993
Mike Durfee State Prison, Springfield (Level III): the largest prison, holding about 1,000 men
South Dakota Women’s Prison, Pierre (Level V)
Rapid City Women’s Prison (Level III): opened in 2026
Minimum centers in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Yankton and Pierre

Two new prisons

South Dakota is replacing much of its aging system. A $87 million women’s prison in Rapid City was finished in July 2026, and women began moving there from Pierre in August. It holds up to 300 women in three 96-bed units, plus a 12-bed building where mothers can keep their newborns, a drug treatment community and vocational training. The crowded Pierre Minimum Center is closing as part of the move.

The men’s prison took longer. The state bought land in Lincoln County in 2023, but the plan met local opposition and the House rejected that plan in early 2025. Governor Larry Rhoden formed a task force, and lawmakers approved a $650 million, 1,500-bed prison in Sioux Falls in a 2025 special session. Ground was broken on April 22, 2026, and the prison is expected to open in 2029, replacing the 140-year-old penitentiary.

Where do new prisoners go first?

Men sentenced to prison are admitted at the Jameson Prison Annex in Sioux Falls, where they get health and dental exams and go through admissions and orientation before being classified and assigned to a facility. Women complete intake and assessment at the South Dakota Women’s Prison in Pierre.

How to find an inmate in South Dakota

The SDDOC Offender Locator searches by last name, first name or DOC number and shows where a person is housed. Write down the DOC number for letters, deposits and visiting forms.

Death penalty in South Dakota

South Dakota has the death penalty and uses lethal injection. Men on death row are held at the State Penitentiary, where executions also take place. The death row population is tiny: SDDOC counted one person with a death sentence in mid-2023. The state has carried out five executions since 1976, all between 2007 and 2019. Two of them grew out of a single crime: in April 2011, two prisoners trying to escape the penitentiary beat correctional officer Ronald “R.J.” Johnson to death. Eric Robert was executed in 2012 and Rodney Berget in 2018. The most recent execution was Charles Rhines on November 4, 2019. Counting the territorial years, South Dakota has executed 20 people since 1877.

South Dakota juvenile facilities

Young people committed by a juvenile court are supervised by Juvenile Community Corrections, part of the South Dakota Department of Corrections. South Dakota is unusual in having no state-run youth prison. It closed the STAR Academy near Custer, including the Patrick Henry Brady Academy, in April 2016 after reforms that steered most youth toward community supervision. Committed youth now go to residential programs run by private providers, overseen by seven juvenile field offices. The number of youth in state care has fallen steadily, to an average of 169 in 2023. Before a case is decided, youth are held in county juvenile detention centers. Juvenile records are confidential, so families should contact the youth’s juvenile corrections agent or SDDOC directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the South Dakota Department of Corrections or Juvenile Community Corrections, choose a facility from the list below.