SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO)– With questions surrounding a possible new men’s prison, the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office outlines what numbers it saw in the county jail this year.

During a Minnehaha county commission meeting on Tuesday, the commission heard from the Sheriffs Office, who gave a report on the jail and numbers they saw last year.

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Jeff Gromer, chief deputy for the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office, said the jail currently handles around 500 people a day, but those people are the most difficult group of people the community has to offer, which can lead to turnover in staff.

“The jail has always had a significant amount of turnover, that’s going to continue. The jail tends to be an entry level position for people moving into their law enforcement careers so that that turnover is good turnover,” Gromer said. “We send a lot of people on to our patrol division to the police department, to the highway patrol, to whatever facet of law enforcement they choose to go work into.”

Mike Milstead, Minnehaha County Sheriff, said the number of inmates for Minnehaha County is nearly the same as last year, but the jail is housing more people from other sources.

“Our local numbers are not seeing the increase, while our jail numbers are a little bit higher, it’s because we’re housing more people for Lincoln County, U.S. Marshals, and ICE or Immigration Customs Enforcement,” Milstead said.

Gromer said while turnover rates for prison staff remain high, they are doing their best to get people working.

“In 2024, the jail had 9 separate new hire classes which brought in 43 new staff through the course of those nine classes, 38 of those staff are still employed with us today,” Gromer said. “That’s a reduction in turnover from previous years, so we’re doing a very good job getting good quality people.”

Gromer said the jail numbers though are holding steady, explaining that the population that’s staying in jail is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.

“Over the course of the year they’ve seen roughly a 3% increase in the number of documentable incidents in the jail,” Gromer said. “How that breaks down just for idea and scope of work is just under 30 documented incidents a day, so the jail staff is dealing throughout the 24 hour day with roughly 27 incidents per day.”

Gromer added that an incident includes inmates not complying with staff, to fights between inmates, to fights against staff and they can range from fairly minor to fairly significant.

Gromer said that while the jail has seen several increases in violent activity, the increase in numbers can be traced back to an increase in population.

“Assaults on staff continue to increase. There was 16 in 2022, 21 in 2023, and that increased to 28 in 2024, just bears evidence to that level of problem population in the jail continuing to increase,” Gromer said.

Gromer added, in 2024 the Minnehaha County Sheriffs Office booked in 15,594 people into the jail, in 2023 that number was 15,150.