Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will be the country’s next vice president if the Democrats win the upcoming election, but what is his state’s crime rate and how does it compare to others?

Walz, who has been selected as Kamala Harris’ running mate, is seen as a progressive and his record on crime has been criticized by Republicans, with Minnesota-based conservative think tank American Experiment calling the state a new “high crime state.”

Continue reading “How Minnesota Crime Rate Compares to Rest of US” →

“Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something,” Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in 2019. Gorsuch elaborates on that theme in a new book, showing how the proliferation of criminal penalties has given prosecutors enormous power to ruin people’s lives, resulting in the nearly complete replacement of jury trials with plea bargains.

“Some scholars peg the number of federal statutory crimes at more than 5,000,” Gorsuch and coauthor Janie Nitze note in “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” while “estimates suggest that at least 300,000 federal agency regulations carry criminal sanctions.” The fact that neither figure is known with precision speaks volumes about the expansion of federal law.

Continue reading “America has too many laws, and that gives prosecutors power to ruin people’s lives” →

The South Dakota Highway Patrol has announced that sobriety checkpoints will be conducted in 14 counties throughout the month of August. These checkpoints are designed to deter impaired driving and promote public safety.

The counties included in the checkpoints are Beadle, Brown, Codington, Fall River, Jones, Kingsbury, Lake, Lyman, Minnehaha, Moody, Pennington, Roberts, Sanborn, and Yankton.

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The Sturgis Police Department has a 21-member staff. During the rally, it becomes the third-largest police force in the state. Sioux Falls has 318 full-time employees, and Rapid City has 176.

The Sturgis rally officers, recruited from all over the country for ten days, are easily identified by their gray shirts.

Continue reading “Sturgis Police Department prepares for hundreds of thousands of bikers” →

South Dakota State University (SDSU) has once again been recognized as the safest college campus in South Dakota, according to a recent report by SafeHome.org. This prestigious recognition is based on the university’s low violent crime rate, which is an impressive 0.24 incidents per 1,000 students. SDSU also holds the title of the safest campus in the region, which includes Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska.

University Police Department Chief Tim Heaton emphasized the institution’s commitment to safety, stating, “We are fully committed to providing the highest level of professional police and public safety services to the university community. The protection and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors has always been our top priority.” Heaton also highlighted the importance of accreditation, training, consultation, teamwork, and open discussion with campus constituencies on law enforcement and related safety matters.

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South Dakota now has a single set of laws for how professional and occupational license applications are to be handled.

South Dakota licensing boards previously had broad discretion and could deny applicants for any felony conviction. That’s no longer the case.

Continue reading “Felony convictions no longer mean automatic license denials” →

Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Colette Peters had a new video released in an attempt to clarify the rules under which First Step Act credits are earned and applied toward a term of incarceration. It represents a leap in transparency by explaining both the rewards prisoners can earn to get home sooner and the complexities of the First Step Act, which was signed into law under President Donald Trump in December 2018. A full transcript of the video is available here.

Continue reading “Bureau Of Prisons’ Video On First Step Act Lays Out Program” →

The computer screen showed hundreds of dots on a map, each one indicating a sports betting app in use. One cluster of dots caught the investigator’s eye. He zoomed in and saw it was the athletic facilities at the University of Iowa.

The cluster was “one of those where once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” a source with knowledge of the map told ESPN.

Continue reading “Inside the historic Iowa athlete sports betting prosecution” →

As of today, several varieties of intoxicating hemp products are illegal to sell or produce in the state of South Dakota.

That doesn’t necessarily put them out of reach for South Dakotans.

It also doesn’t mean death for the market in alternative intoxicants that’s emerged across South Dakota and the nation in part thanks to a loophole in the 2018 federal farm bill, which legalized hemp.

Continue reading “Law banning sale of some near-pot products takes effect, but won’t prevent every legal high” →

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley hopes a new basic law enforcement training course that prioritizes tribal recruits will prove the state could host regional training for Native American officers from the Upper Midwest.

Jackley and U.S. Attorney Alison Ramsdell spoke Monday at the George S. Mickelson Law Enforcement Center in Pierre, in advance of a media tour of the facility and presentations on the ongoing course.

Continue reading “Police academy for tribal recruits should lead to regional effort, attorney general says” →