The Office of the Attorney General has released (Dec. 28, 2022) the Crime in South Dakota 2021 report. This report is compiled annually by the Attorney General’s Criminal Statistical Analysis Center. Despite technical and staffing issues that affected the 2021 reporting, this publication is designed to reflect the actual arrest and reporting information by South Dakota law enforcement.
The 2021 report reflects the work of law enforcement professionals around the state and assists in final determinations regarding the allocation of personnel as well as information and technology resources.
“Criminal statistics are an indispensable asset to aid in identifying trends in criminal activity,” said Interim Director of the Division of Criminal Investigation Chad Mosteller. “And that helps law enforcement officers and agencies in their efforts to keep South Dakota communities safe.”
In 2021, the total participation rate was 91.16% with 101 agencies participating. This is a decrease of 3 agencies.
SOUTH DAKOTA CRIME SUMMARY 2021
In 2021, state and local law enforcement agencies reported a total of 69,277 offenses. This represents a 5.33% decrease from the year prior.
Group “A” Offenses totaled 46,334 compared to 54,163 offenses reported in 2020. This represents a difference of 7,829 or 14.45% decrease .
Group “B” Offenses totaled 22,943 compared to 19,017 offenses reported in 2020. This represents a difference of 3,926 or 20.64% increase.
Murder decreased by 45.71%; there were 19 homicides reported in 2021, as compared to 35 homicides reported in 2020.
Forcible Rape decreased by 51 or 10.22%. There were 448 forcible rapes reported in 2021, compared to 499 reported in 2020.
There was a total of 2,221 burglaries reported in 2021. This is a 21.49% decrease from 2020 where 2,829 were reported. Thirty Four (34.35%) percent of burglaries reported in 2021 were forced entry (763).
In 2021, juvenile arrestees accounted for 10.03% (3,828) of the total arrests (38,160), up from 3,694 in 2020, an up of 3.63%.
The number of reported arrests in 2021 for DUI was 5,654. This represents an increase of 618 arrests or 12.27% from the total of 5,036 reported in 2020.
In 2021, 6,731 total drug offenses were reported compared to 7,915 reported in 2020, making the year decrease by 14.96%. In the last five years, drug offenses have decreased by 24.86%, with 8,404 drug offenses being reported in 2017.
Note: Due to technical issues with the record management system used by a majority of SD Local Law Enforcement agencies, we did not receive some 2021 incident data. This may account for the major differences you see in this publication when comparing total numbers reported to prior years. Also, due to an unexpected change in staffing, there was no ability to perform an audit on any data received or on any data missing for 2021.
South Dakota law enforcement agencies reported a total of 38,160 arrests involving 69,277 offenses in 2021. More serious offenses accounted for a total of 15,210 arrests and include the following:
- murder (1st and 2nd degree)-9,
- sex offenses-76,
- assault-5,070,
- larceny/theft-908,
- fraud-574,
- drug/narcotic-6,928,
- prostitution-7,
- kidnapping-64,
- robbery-52,
- arson-17,
- burglary-204,
- motor vehicle theft-270,
- counterfeiting-152,
- embezzlement-12,
- stolen property-167,
- destruction of property-386,
- pornography/obscene material-26, and
- weapon law violations-274.
Less serious offenses included the following:
- DUI-5,654,
- liquor law violations-1,526, and
- disorderly conduct-2,615.
In November 2022 the Attorney General’s Office hired a full-time Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Coordinator and, going forward, the Office will collect incidents investigated on Indian Country and report them in this publication. That information has not previously been included in the state totals and is not included in the 2021 report.
You can read the full report here.
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