SPRINGFIELD, S.D. (KELO) – The South Dakota Department of Corrections has said staff was able to restore order at the Mike Durfee State Prison following two fights this week. However, people close to the situation are worried it’s not over.

Multiple inmates and their family members have reached out to KELOLAND News with their concerns but wish to stay off-camera and unnamed for fear of retaliation.

Three common concerns that have been brought up, however, include gang violence, understaffing and a lack of air conditioning in the prison. At least one of those issues — understaffing — is not a new problem for the Springfield prison.

Mike Durfee State Prison wasn’t originally built to house inmates but rather college students. In 1984, the state closed the University of South Dakota Springfield campus, put up barbed wire and moved prisoners in.

40 years later the campus continues to house inmates. The latest update from the South Dakota Department of Corrections says 1,227 men lived at the Springfield facility in May, which is over capacity. According to the DOC’s annual report, Mike Durfee State Prison has a designed capacity of 963 inmates and an operational capacity of 1,043 inmates.

An outside review done in 2022 of the DOC system highlighted several areas that needed improvement in all of the state’s prison facilities. At Mike Durfee, the review indicated quote ‘inefficient facility layouts that complicates operations and presents security challenges.’

As for staffing, the report said in in 2021 Mike Durfee had an 18 percent vacancy rate for correctional officers.

The problem wasn’t new.

In 2016, KELOLAND Investigates reported the prison was down 17 correctional officers and struggling to fill the open positions. At the time, Warden Bob Dooley said Mike Durfee was also seeing an increase in violence.

“We’re seeing a little bit more gang activity than we used to years ago. There’s always been gangs in prison but that’s increased somewhat,” Dooley said in 2016.

An issue that doesn’t seem to have gone away.

“This is not a fight,” an inmate said. “This is gang war.”

“They said it was a fight there? That’s a lie,” an inmate said.

“It’s not just a fight,” an inmate said.

We have reached out to the Department of Corrections about the concerns of gang violence and understaffing, but have yet to hear back.



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