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SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO.com) — The statewide crackdown on parole violators has created an emergency at the Minnehaha County Jail. Sheriff Mike Milstead says his office was forced to do an emergency expansion into jail space that wasn’t expected to be needed for more than a year.
The Sheriff says that was necessary because the number of parolees in the jail has gone from an average of 8 parolees per day up to 160 in just a matter of weeks. Sheriff Milstead told County Commissioners, “That caused us last week to open up, prematurely on what I would call an emergency basis, UC3, which is the next floor of the jail.” He says that space was intended for eventual expansion to meet Minnehaha County’s future jail needs, but was expanded instead to meet Department of Correction needs.
The state cracked down on parole violators after a parolee was charged with the attempted murder of a Sioux Falls police officer last month. That was the state’s response to the attempted murder of a Sioux Falls police officer last month by a parolee. The officer was shot several times after being ambushed by the parolee. The incident became the graphic example of a problem law enforcement had been warning about in recent years – the problem of parolees committing crimes after receiving an early parole release from the state prison system. Sheriff Milstead says Pennington County is experiencing some of the same problems.
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