Inmates doing rally shuffle

By Heidi Bell Gease, Journal Staff Writer | Thursday, August 12, 2004

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RAPID CITY -- Every August, the Sturgis motorcycle rally gives thousands of people an excuse to take a vacation.

This year, it has also afforded about a dozen Rapid City residents an opportunity to travel — only they are headed away from Sturgis to Minnehaha County Jail.

With inmate numbers on the rise here, Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway has recently had to house prisoners at Meade County Jail in Sturgis. But with the Sturgis rally scheduled for this week, Meade County needed all the room it could get. That meant finding alternative housing for some Pennington County inmates.

By Tuesday, Holloway had sent 13 inmates to the Sioux Falls jail for temporary housing — on a sheriff's office transport bus that makes the trip twice a week. All of the inmates should return here by next week, he said.

Pennington County often takes in a few new inmates during the rally, such as eight men arrested earlier this week in connection with an ongoing card scam.

"Usually, it doesn't put us in a bind, but it's just that our general jail population has increased," Holloway said Wednesday. "It's a juggling game to try to keep all of the people who need to be incarcerated incarcerated."

Most inmates in Pennington County Jail's main facility are awaiting trial or sentencing. Holloway said the inmates transported to Sioux Falls were chosen partly because they didn't have court appearances coming up soon.

"The closest jail that has any space is Minnehaha County," Holloway said. Lawrence County and Meade County need their jail space during the rally, and Pierre's jail is already overcrowded.

So is Pennington County's. As of Monday, Holloway had 396 adults in custody, counting inmates housed in Minnehaha County and at the work-release facility. "I don't think I've ever had that many before," Holloway, who has been sheriff since 1982, said.

He cited several possible reasons for the high number. "We've got more law enforcement on the street than we had ... because both the police department and I have our people back from Iraq," Holloway said. The police department has also added staff.

In addition, Holloway said the highway patrol and other law enforcement agencies are focusing more attention on drunken driving, with fatalities on the rise recently. "And I think we're getting more crime related to methamphetamine, which is having an effect on us."

Seventh Circuit Judge Jeff Davis routinely comes in on Saturdays and Sundays to review cases and bond people out of jail, so the jail doesn't have to house every weekend arrest until Monday court. "He's been really helping us," Holloway said.

Things should ease up here by 2006. A new jail annex under construction is slated to be finished in October 2005 and will immediately provide room for 100 more inmates, Holloway said. It will include space that can be finished to house 200 additional inmates.

The current jail can house 272 people, with another 12 holding cells in the booking area, Holloway said. The Pennington County Work Release facility can accommodate 120 inmates, but not all inmates qualify to be housed there.

This is the first time inmates have had to be transported to Sioux Falls to make room for the Sturgis rally. But to Holloway, it's nothing new. Before the current jail was built in 1989, he said, "I used to do it all the time."

Contact Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell@rapidcityjournal.com