Power of the 'Pen'

Hazel's Weekly Column

South Dakota Children in crises: DOC not honest with the public
By Hazel Bonner
 

Two releases to the press were made last week. The first was a release of the Kids Count data for 2005. The second was a release from the Department of Corrections about a drop in inmate numbers. Kids Count placed South Dakota at number 30 among states for the welfare of children. That is a significant drop. . Minnesota was first in the nation, North Dakota 8th, Nebraska 10th, Wyoming 25th and Montana 29th. There were some astounding figures here including the rate of children in foster care and those in detention. Kids Count is a publication of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. South Dakota is not a good place for kids.

As of 2005 youth in South Dakota were poorer, more likely to be detained or in foster care, more likely to have died from all causes, more likely to have died as an infant, more likely to have smoked during pregnancy, more likely to have participated in binge drinking; and more likely to live in a poor working household than youth in most other states in the country. In the area of the rate per 100,000 of children in detention South Dakota had a rate of 564 and ranked second. Wyoming was first at 607. SD ranked 40th among the states for the rate of children in foster care along with North Dakota and Wyoming with rates of 14 per 1,000 children. The national rate was 10. South Dakota ranked 50th among the states in child deaths from all causes with a rate of 39. The national rate was 20 per 100,000. South Dakota nearly doubled that For Infant mortality South Dakota ranked 39th with a rate of 8.2 per 1,000 infants. The national rate was 6.8.

South Dakota ranked 38th for teen deaths by accident, homicide and suicide with a rate of 68 teen deaths per 1000 youth. The national rate was 50, South Dakota was higher than the average State in the United States in the following areas:

1. SD had 79 percent of families with all available parents in the labor force. Median family income of South Dakota families was $50,300 compared with $54,700 in the US. Thus SD families are primarily poor working households.
2. SD had 27 percent of children under age 6 in low-income working families; 26 percent of children under 13 and 24 percent of children under 18 in low income working families. The average in the US was 22 percent in all categories.
3. South Dakota had only 36 percent of 3-4 year olds in nursery school compared with the US average at 45 percent.
4. South Dakota had 76 percent of children under 6 in families with all available parents in the labor force, nationally only 60 percent are in that category.
5. At risk behavior of youth in South Dakota showed the following information:

a. Births to mothers who smoked during pregnancy was at 18.6 nearly double that of the nation at 10.2 percent.
b. Binge alcohol drinking among SD youth 12 – 17 was at 16 percent, with 11 percent at the national level; Youth 18-25 were binge drinkers 56 percent of the time with the national average being 41 percent.

So everyone was correct if you believed that more kids are in crises in South Dakota-this data shows that they are. The Data comes from the KIDS COUNT data book for 2007. It can be found online at http://www/kidscount.org. The Annie E. Casey foundation convened a working group of experts on state-level Data on Child Maltreatment and Foster care in May, 2005 and issued a report in January 2006. That report showed that the child maltreatment victimization rate per 1,000 children for South Dakota was 20.2 ranking them 46th in the nation. Yet, it appears to me that none of the special initiatives are in operation in South Dakota. This writer is aware of the special programs operated by the Casey Family Program on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. They do not show up as indicatives of the Casey Foundation.

The second release was from the Department of Corrections. It just plain left out data found on their website. It said that there were 77 fewer inmates in prison this year at the end of FY 2007, June 30, 2007 than last year. The number of inmates at 3392 is confirmed on their website. However the addition of federal inmates brings the total to 3419. South Dakota started renting cells to the federal government and to other states years ago. They make a lot of money doing that. I hear from some of those inmates and they generally tell me they want to return to prison in their home state or go to a federal prison rather than remain in South Dakota. They say that the South Dakota prison system is the worst they have seen. This writer agrees with that. South Dakota, as stated in my last column has had 7 inmate deaths during the first half of calendar year 2007. If those deaths continue we will outstrip the 12 deaths during calendar year 2004. They also claim that more inmates are being paroled than previously. Again they say that the State prison is down 39 inmates, which is true, except they did not include federal and other state inmates which showed an increase of 20 inmates. If more inmates are being paroled the “send them back Jack” attitude of parole officers will certainly put a dent in that, with the 24/7 program going statewide and brown-skinned people being returned to prison on a regular basis for those violations. Again I remind you that the percentage of indigenous inmates has increased not decreased.

This writer simply does not buy the statement that “The number of inmates admitted to prison who were assessed as having a meth dependency issue also dropped significantly during fiscal year 2007. Tim Reisch said “The fact that our prison population has dropped and that meth dependency appears to be on the decline is tremendous news.” Where did that data come from? Inmates in jail here are still very high in meth dependency and those are the inmates who go on to prison. They don’t suddenly get cured on entering prison. The jail here does not operate an in-house meth program and most inmates arrested are in maximum security and cannot attend the program at the County Detox Center. Further the DOC report did not look at juveniles. On June 30, 2007 there were 471 juveniles in DOC and other placements including contractual foster care and other DOC Foster Care. Remember, the victims of Ted Klaudt were in DOC Foster care in his home. The rate of juvenile placement in DOC was over 600 as of the end of FY 2007. About 70 percent of those were brown-skinned. We have to do better than that!

Bonner is a freelance writer who writes from her home. She can be reached electronically at hbonpidge1@hotmail.com; by mail at PO Box 3712, Rapid City, SD 57709-3712 or by phone at (605) 342-5834 Ext. 123, after 3:00 p.m. please.
 

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