How did Sioux Falls crime compare in 2022? Law enforcement breaks down the numbers

Homicides and rape cases were down last year in Sioux Falls, though some other crime-related trends are catching the attention of law enforcement.

Crime is expected to grow with population, Mayor Paul TenHaken said in a news conference Tuesday, pointing out that the city grew to nearly 210,000 people in 2022, compared with 166,000 a decade ago.

“There’s more people. There’s more opportunities for crime,” he said. “You’re not adding 7,000 choir boys when you add 7,000 people a year.”

The rate of crime per capita is what TenHaken said he follows most closely. That spiked in 2020 locally and nationwide and has come down a bit since then.

“A sense of lawlessness really crept in in 2020, and in some ways we continue to battle against that,” TenHaken said. “I think we’ve done a great job in Sioux Falls by seeing this number stay fairly consistent.”

After reaching 13 homicides in 2020, there were seven in 2022, compared with five in 2021.

There were 90 reported rapes, compared with 119 in 2021 and 116 in 2020.

Assaults were on par with previous years, and “when it comes to aggravated assaults, the vast majority of people we see committing crimes in this space are no stranger to the criminal justice system,” Police Chief Jon Thum said. “We see a lot of repeat offenders.”

There also was an increase in robberies that Thum called alarming as they rose to 169 in 2022, compared with 113 in 2021 and 136 in 2020. It was not an across-the-board increase such as casino or gas station robberies, Thum said, but more a case of “person-to-person robberies … people taking stuff from each other,” he said. “We’ll continue to monitor this trend and really see where it develops in 2023.”

Burglaries also ticked up, including a trend of repeat break-ins involving vape and tobacco stores.

“We saw a lot of repeat hits on some of these locations,” Thum said, noting that they were driven by young people trying to get vape products “from smoke shops and gas stations.”

The number of stolen vehicles basically held steady at 1,361, and “the vast majority of these are unsecured vehicles with the keys left in them,” he said. “These vehicles end up being used in other crimes.”

Drug seizures were down some in 2022 for both fentanyl and methamphetamine — but both had large seizures in 2021.

“Fentanyl gets a lot of attention,” Thum said. “Methamphetamine is still an issue and something we have to be focused on as well.”

Calls for service have plateaued at about 127,000, on par with previous years, but there also has been a push for online reporting, Thum said.

The department continues to add officers steadily for an authorized strength of 288 officers.

“Which puts us in a better position than most agencies our size,” Thum said. “But we need to keep aggressively pursuing hiring and more officers. We can’t take our foot off the gas.”

Sioux Falls police maintained a clearance rate of cases “high above the national average,” he added. “That’s something we take pride in as a department.”

The department has a $5,000 hiring bonus for all new hires to stay competitive with an industry standard, he said. Thirty-five officers were hired last year. Across the department, 15 percent of the force reported as nonwhite or two or more races. Eighty-five percent were male, which means Sioux Falls is above the national average for female officers.

The Minnehaha County state’s attorney’s office also is increasing its staff in response to an increase in felony cases, State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar said. In 2016, 17 percent of the office’s cases were felonies; last year was 34 percent.

“Those take more time, they take more resources, but we’re going to be equipped to handle those,” he said. “We’re ready to fight violent crime.”

Law enforcement agencies across the state increasingly are collaborating on issues of shared impact. Leaders from Sioux Falls, Rapid City and their counties as well as the state are working on how to handle everything from parole absconders to rehabilitation. It led to this legislative session’s truth-in-sentencing bill that will make convicted offenders serve their entire sentence with little to no chance of parole in the case of certain violent crimes.

“It’s something I think the victims of crime deserve. It’s something I think the community deserves,” Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead said. “It’s an important bill for South Dakota.”

City’s new violent crimes unit to target major offenders with comprehensive approach