• Last year, we passed historic legislation in South Dakota to reform our criminal justice system. These reforms were enacted to improve public safety, hold offenders more accountable and reduce corrections spending.
• When we met with stakeholders before drafting the legislation, tribal members brought a parole issue forward. Today, nearly 30 percent of the inmates in the state prison system are Native American. More than half of parolees who abscond from the state parole supervision are Native Americans. In many of these cases, the absconders are returning to one of the reservations, where they often have homes and families.  Unfortunately, because the state lacks jurisdiction on the reservations, state parole agents can no longer supervise parolees who return to a reservation.
• Under the Public Safety Improvement Act, we established the state tribal parole pilot program to allow some Native American offenders to serve their parole supervision on the reservation. After I signed the bill into law, we met with the seven tribes that expressed interest in participating in the pilot. In April the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate was selected for the first pilot program.
• For the pilot program, the state will provide training and funding for a tribal parole agent to supervise parolees on the reservation. The tribal agent will use the same parole system that state agents use.  This system applies swift, certain and proportionate sanctions for misbehavior, along with incentives for compliance.  These evidence-based practices have been shown to reduce the risk that a parolee will return to the penitentiary. The parolees will be able to access mental health services, substance abuse treatment services and housing resources from the tribe while residing and working near their homes and families.
• The Department of Corrections and the tribe plan to hire a tribal parole agent later this summer. The tribe's wellness team is currently establishing guidelines to determine which parolees are eligible to participate, and DOC staff members have begun to inform inmates from that area about the tribal pilot. The tribe is expected to monitor its first parolees in early fall.
• If the parole pilot program with Sisseton-Wahpeton proves successful, we'll have the opportunity to expand it to other reservations. Its success would mean a smoother transition for Native American parolees, restoration of families for the tribe and reductions in prison spending for the state of South Dakota. It would be a win, win, win.