PRISON-RELEASE DISCRETION AND PRISON POPULATION SIZE - STATE REPORT: SOUTH DAKOTA

Application of the PMP measure to entire prison systems is, at best, an appr oximation that requires the proration of multiple classes of sentences and their PMPs according to the numbers and percentages of prisoners who have received those different classes of sentence. [...] Codified Laws § 24-15A-38 (“Each inmate shall be released from incarceration to parole supervision, without a hearing with the board, at the time of the inmate's initial parole date, if the inmate has substantively met the requirements of the individual program directive established by the department, agreed to the conditions of supervision and has an approved parole release plan.”). [...] Generally-available credits: types and amounts At the discretion of the department of corrections, prisoners may earn three types of “discharge credits” in South Dakota: (1) up to 90 days of discharge credits for each program completion; (2) up to 90 days of discharge credits for 365 hours of satisfactory work, not to exceed 180 days of discharge credits for work in a 12-month period; and (3) up t. [...] Overall assessment of indeterminacy in South Dakota’s prison-sentencing system The general rules of prison release apply to a large percentage of prisoners in the South Dakota system. [...] For many general-rules sentences (those with minimum sentences shorter than the 50-percent mark of the maximum), the percentage of time-actually-served served within the maximum is more under the control of the parole board and department of corrections than with the sentencing judge and other front-end actors who fashion courtroom outcomes (such as prosecutors in the exercise of their charging di.