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• Noem says passage is critical to ranchers who depend on livestock disaster programs that expired last year. She says the farm bill would also be retroactive so ranchers could report losses incurred this year and still receive assistance.
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SD state leaders announce Corrections Dept. study
KRISTI EATON,Associated Press
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- State leaders from all three branches of government announced Tuesday the creation of a work group to study possible ways to reform the criminal justice system in an effort to control its rising costs in South Dakota.
• The state's prison population has grown by more than 500 percent since 1980, to more than 3,600 inmates, and consumes more than $100 million a year. The work group will study sentencing and Department of Corrections policies to see if there are reforms or alternatives, such as community treatment programs, that could ease the amount of money spent each year on overall public safety, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said.
• "This is not about being hard or soft on crime. This is about being smart on crime," Daugaard said.
• South Dakota's prison rate is about double the rates of North Dakota and Minnesota. Projections show that if nothing is done, the prison population will increase by about 25 percent to 4,500 by 2022.
• That would require more than $224 million in taxpayer dollars to cover capital costs for building and operating two new prisons, one for men and one for women.
• The work group, which includes representatives from the state judiciary, Legisla (Continued on page 15)
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