(Pierre, SD) — South Dakota prison workshops are losing money. The Department of Corrections is required to operate them without losing money. The most recent annual report shows some shops lose as much as 400-thousand dollars a year. Inmates aren’t spending enough of their work time filling customer orders, tagging just 15-percent, well under the 70-percent industry standard, of their work hours to the job orders they’re meant to fill in the carpentry, metal fabrication, or sign-making shops. The DOC’s most recent annual report says four of the prison industries’ divisions ended 2022 with negative cash flows on their balance sheets, according to the DOC.
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