Tumultuous period at penitentiary culminates in warden’s departure • South Dakota Searchlight

Teresa Bittinger is no longer warden of the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Department of Corrections (DOC) employees got an email late Tuesday evening from Director of Prisons Amber Pirraglia announcing the warden’s departure. Within minutes, the email was posted to a Facebook group for the friends and families of inmates. The email was sent independently to South Dakota Searchlight by sources connected to the DOC.

Lawmakers, prison officials shut out public during discussion of weekslong lockdown

“This decision was made after careful consideration and in alignment with the goals and standards of the department,” Pirraglia wrote.

The email goes on to say that Pirraglia will serve as interim warden, and that a “nationwide search is underway” to find wardens for the South Dakota State Penitentiary and the maximum security Jameson Annex, which is located on the Sioux Falls prison site.

That would mean an additional warden. Bittinger had been warden for both facilities.

DOC spokesman Michael Winder confirmed in a Wednesday morning email that Bittinger is no longer warden. He did not characterize the nature of Bittinger’s departure and said no other personnel information will be shared. 

Bittinger was warden of the prison campus in Sioux Falls for less than two years. She was appointed in March 2023 to fill the role on an interim basis and became permanent warden the following month.

Bittinger’s departure came one day after lawmakers on a legislative oversight committee spent nearly an hour and a half in a closed discussion with DOC Secretary Kellie Wasko.

The committee went into executive session after a short discussion of a weekslong lockdown at the Sioux Falls prison’s three housing units. Commission Chairman Ernie Otten, R-Tea, closed the session in part to discuss “personnel and contractual matters.”

No one mentioned Bittinger during the public portions of the hearing.

Private employers say they were pushed out of state prisons

Her departure comes at a tumultuous time for the DOC. The Sioux Falls lockdown was reportedly undertaken as a preemptive action, meant to weed out and seize contraband across three buildings.

The campus-wide searches included teardowns of three large sweat lodges, prompting a letter last week from Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out demanding an explanation.

Those were only the most recent controversies. The agency is also dealing with the fallout from incidents of inmate-on-inmate violence at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield in June, and from two bouts of unrest in March at the penitentiary that injured a correctional officer and sparked criminal charges for a handful of inmates. Those events came in the weeks following a temporary shutdown of electronic tablet-based communications.

The DOC has also faced criticism from the family members of inmates, who organized a group meant to pressure officials to respond to their concerns about safety, the price of commissary items for inmates and the impact of repeated lockdowns. 

Meanwhile, the agency aims to build a new men’s prison in Lincoln County, about 15 miles south of the penitentiary, to replace most of the existing Sioux Falls facility that dates to 1881. The state has already committed $569 million to the plan, but has yet to lock in a guaranteed price. 

State prison system puts nearly 1,300 inmates on indefinite lockdown

Neighbors to the site, long used as farmland, have presented fierce resistance. They formed a nonprofit called Neighbors Opposed to Prison Expansion, filed a zoning-related lawsuit against the DOC that remains unresolved, have organized multiple public forums and have helped spark questions from lawmakers to the DOC on the feasibility of its site selection and construction plans.

If built, the new prison will be the most expensive taxpayer-funded capital project in state history. Another construction project — an $87 million women’s prison in Rapid City, to relieve overcrowding at the women’s prison in Pierre — is underway, so far without any of the controversy that has dogged the men’s prison project.

Bittinger herself arrived in the wake of scandal. She took over for warden Dan Sullivan, who took over for former Deputy Corrections Secretary Doug Clark, who’d served as interim warden after a 2021 shake-up tied to allegations of nepotism and sexual harassment that have never been explained by Gov. Kristi Noem’s administration.

The shake-up resulted in the ouster of former warden Darin Young and others at the Sioux Falls facility.

Sullivan, a 23-year veteran of the federal prison system who came to Sioux Falls by way of Minnesota, served less than two years before Bittinger’s appointment.