South Dakota: Great Place for Kids... to Go to Jail?

KJAM reports a puzzling statistic this morning: South Dakota's juvenile incarceration rate is triple the national average. Data from the Kids Count project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that in 2006, the state of South Dakota had custody of 373 out of 100,000 kids aged 10–15. Looking at all youth, SD's incarceration rate is 672 per 100,000. We don't just beat the national averages (125 per 100K for ages 10-15; 295 per 100K for all youth): our juvenile incarceration rates are the highest rates in the nation:

Six Highest Juvenile Incarceration Rates (per 100,000)
State	Ages 10-15	State	All Youth
SD	373	SD	672
WY	334	DC	671
DC	294	WY	559
AL	201	AK	430
SC	185	CO	397
IN	183	FL	397
Six Lowest Juvenile Incarceration Rates
IL	62	ME	152
NJ	50	NH	148
VT	50	NC	144
NM	47	MS	128
HI	36	HI	92
ME	33	VT	81

SD Department of Corrections Director of Juvenile Services Doug Herrman says he's not surprised, but I am. The only place close to us on any of the numbers is the District of Columbia, the very sort of metropolitan madhouse we country folks like to think we are nothing like. Otherwise, there's a big gap between our numbers and those of any other state.

Explanations, anyone? I think I can hear some readers wondering about "those darn Indians" skewing our numbers, but New Mexico is Indian Country, too, and they're down at the bottom of the list. Low-scoring Hawaii, too, has a large native population... although when it's 80 degrees and you can go surfing every day, why would anyone commit crime?

Is juvenile crime really that bad in South Dakota, or do we just have a uniquely tough "cuff 'em and stuff 'em" philosophy toward our kids? Sioux Falls Juvenile Detention Center Director Todd Cheever suggests in that Sioux Falls paper that our high numbers might be a result of a focus on deterrence. Go after the kids now, give them a taste of life in a cage, and maybe they stay out of trouble later.

Maybe that philosophy is working: these Bureau of Justice statistics (see page 17—PDF alert!) show South Dakota's overall incarceration rate is 432 per 100K, below the national rate of 509 per 100K. We're below the national rate for males (767/100K here, 957/100K nationally), but above the national rate for female prisoners (99/100K here, 69/100K nationally). Hmm... perhaps the DoC's motto is "Women and Children First!"

I have no problem with holding miscreants of any age accountable. Crime shold come with time of some sort. But with youth incarceration rates this much higher than the rest of the country, South Dakota (not just the nanny state, but every one of us) needs to take a serious look at what's pushing so many kids into the correctional system. Maybe we can figure out how to keep them from going there in the first place.