State, county, and city law enforcement leaders are seeing a surge in activity in Sturgis along with the swelling population due to the motorcycle rally.
At Monday’s news conference, Sturgis Police Chief Geody Vanderwater, Meade County Sheriff Pat West, and South Dakota Highway Patrol Assistant District Three Commander Zac Bader shared the latest crime and safety statistics from the first weekend of the rally.
Continue reading “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally: ‘Overall, people are being well behaved’”
The South Dakota Commission on Gaming is issuing a public warning about a rise in fraudulent online casinos that are deceptively using the names and logos of legitimate South Dakota gaming establishments. These unauthorized platforms, which operate illegally, are designed to trick consumers and pose significant financial and personal security risks.
According to the Commission, online casino gaming, including slots, table games, and sports wagering, is not legal in South Dakota. Any platform offering these services is operating without authorization. The Commission has received reports of misleading online ads and social media promotions that imitate the branding of well-known Deadwood and Tribal casinos, offer unrealistic bonuses, and redirect users to fake websites or apps.
Continue reading “South Dakota Gaming Commission Issues Warning Against Fraudulent Online Casinos”
The state of South Dakota will spend more time and money in the coming months to police the streets of Sioux Falls, and to help federal agents deport immigrants who lack legal status.
The work will support the state’s fast-growing city, Gov. Larry Rhoden said, and help the state’s seven federal immigration agents add to their current arrest tally of 262 in the state since President Donald Trump took office.
Amid recent political rhetoric about rising crime and violence in American cities, a new analysis shows that violent crime has continued to decline this year.
Homicides and several other serious offenses, including gun assaults and carjackings, dropped during the first half of 2025 across 42 U.S. cities, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022, according to a new crime trends report released Thursday by the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.
Continue reading “Violent crime continues to drop across US cities, report shows”
The Unified Narcotic Enforcement Team (UNET) announced the arrest of two Rapid City residents on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, following an ongoing investigation into illegal drug trafficking in Western South Dakota. The arrests led to the substantial seizure of cocaine, fentanyl, and MDMA.
North Dakota attorneys and judicial officials say a lack of funding for a key federal program could harm federal defendants’ ability to get quality representation.
The U.S. Constitution protects criminal defendants’ right to an attorney. When federal defendants can’t afford a lawyer, they are typically assigned a federal public defender. About 40% of the time, however, federal defenders must pass the case to a private lawyer due to a conflict of interest, according to the judicial branch.
President Donald Trump signed a sprawling budget bill — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — into law last week. The legislation, a vehicle for most of his domestic policy agenda, rewrites significant portions of the country’s immigration and criminal justice systems in ways big and small.
The most visible shift is the law’s commitment of about $170 billion to immigration enforcement over the next decade. That includes a 265% annual increase to the national immigration detention budget, according to the American Immigration Council, an immigration advocacy group. The administration plans to rapidly double immigration detention space to hold about 100,000 people, largely by paying private prison companies to reopen currently shuttered facilities.
Continue reading “How the “Big Beautiful Bill” Will Change Criminal Justice and Immigration”
Criminal justice advocates are frustrated that a law that allows incarcerated people to shorten their sentences in Minnesota is still in its pilot stages two years after it was passed.
The Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA) was passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 2023, and went into effect Aug. 1 of that year. The act allows incarcerated people to shorten their sentence by up to 17% for good behavior and if they work to rehabilitate themselves by participating in programming and treatment.
Continue reading “Advocates say Minnesota is moving too slow on early release prison program”
Iowa drivers will be more likely to get pulled over after July 1 if they are behind the wheel with their cellphones in their hands. This new law is one of many passed by the Iowa Legislature during the 2025 session set to go into effect at the beginning of July.
Senate File 22 bans the use of cellphones and electronic devices when not in voice activated or hands-free mode while operating a vehicle. Police officers will begin pulling over distracted drivers and charging them with a warning starting July 1. Come January 2026, offenders will be charged with a simple misdemeanor, punishable by a fine between $100 and $850.
Continue reading “Here are 11 new Iowa laws that include criminal penalties”
The South Dakota Supreme Court has affirmed a lower court’s decision regarding the admissibility of body camera footage as evidence, a ruling praised by South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley. The High Court’s unanimous decision upheld a Pennington County Circuit Court ruling in the case of State of South Dakota v. Michael David Geist.
The case involved Michael David Geist, who was convicted of assaulting a Rapid City Police Officer. During the trial, the prosecution presented body camera footage from a second officer. Geist’s defense argued that the footage should have been inadmissible because the officer who recorded it was unavailable to testify due to a military assignment. Continue reading “South Dakota Supreme Court Upholds Use of Body Camera Footage in Assault Case”