Job Description
Job ID: 36437
Agency: Department of Corrections - South Dakota Women's Prison
Location: Pierre, SD
Salary: $30.00 to $33.00 per hour, depending on experience
Pay Grade: GI
Closing Date: Open Until Filled
This is a full-time position with the Department of Corrections. For more information on the Department of Corrections, please visit http://doc.sd.gov .
The South Dakota Department of Corrections is hiring! Join the DOC - view DOC Recruitment video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI3Hwg99jTg&t=9s .
The Corrections Lieutenant serves as the Shift Commander, maintaining absolute oversight of daily facility operations, safety, and security. This critical leadership role coordinates institutional services with medical, behavioral health, and administrative units to ensure operational continuity. The Lieutenant enforces Department of Corrections (DOC) policies, Institutional Implementation Adjustments (IAs), and emergency protocols. As the ranking institutional officer on nights, weekends, and holidays, this position directs all personnel, monitors offender activities, and serves as the primary authority during critical incidents.
Ideal Candidate Profile Will Have:
Minimum Qualifications
• Standard Track: Three (3) years of progressively responsible corrections experience in a secure facility working directly with offenders. This must include at least one (1) year of active supervisory experience at the rank of Sergeant or higher, with documented oversight of correctional personnel.
• Educational Track: A combination of relevant post-secondary education (Criminal Justice, Social Work, Sociology, Psychology, or a closely related behavioral science field) and direct corrections experience totaling three (3) years.
Experience Definitions & Core Competencies:
• Qualifying Experience: Active, direct service delivery within a secure environment to clients detained against their will. Qualifying fields include custody and control, institutional education, correctional social work, medical/nursing services, large-scale food service, or general facility maintenance. Experience supervising offenders within correctional industries or specialized program implementations is also qualifying.
• Non-Qualifying Experience: Clerical support, administrative roles, and entry-level officer experience without advanced oversight do not meet the qualification standard. Candidates must demonstrate prior authority in executing complex operational components, such as conducting classification hearings, participating in Institutional Classification Committees (ICC), leading multi-disciplinary staffing, and vetting formal offender grievances.
Key Functions & Essential Duties:
Shift Command & Operational Continuity
• Daily Oversight: Serve as Shift Commander with complete operational authority over facility safety, security, and administrative functions during assigned shifts.
• Interdepartmental Liaison: Coordinate directly with medical, mental health, and program staff to facilitate required treatments and ensure secure offender access.
• Shift Handover: Collaborate with incoming and outgoing shift commanders to provide seamless operational transitions, comprehensive shift briefings, and intelligence sharing.
• Logistics & Records: Maintain meticulous, legally defensible daily institutional logs, incident reports, and operational records in compliance with DOC documentation standards.
Resource Allocation & Staff Supervision
• Personnel Scheduling: Manage, allocate, and adjust personnel schedules across all posts to maintain mandatory staffing levels and minimize unnecessary overtime.
• Post Inspections: Conduct continuous physical inspections of all facility posts to verify staff alertness, compliance with post orders, and proper equipment operation.
• Mentorship & Development: Act as a proactive mentor to both probationary and tenured staff, modeling professional boundaries and high ethical standards.
• Performance Management: Evaluate subordinate staff through formal performance appraisals, conduct daily shift briefings, deliver policy updates, and manage leave requests.
• Discipline & Grievances: Resolve internal staff conflicts, conduct initial investigations into policy violations, and recommend formal disciplinary actions when necessary.
Security, Tactical Operations & Emergency Management
• Incident Command: Assume the role of Initial Incident Commander during critical incidents, managing responses to medical emergencies, riots, fires, escapes, or natural disasters until relieved by higher authority.
• Tactical Readiness: Authorize emergency protocols, initiate unannounced tactical drills, and evaluate staff performance during simulated crisis scenarios.
• Contraband Suppression: Oversee Point of Entry (POE) metal detector screenings, coordinate comprehensive canine or manual searches of offender housing, and manage the chain of custody for confiscated contraband.
• Security Audits: Direct routine inspections of physical security structures, including locks, barriers, windows, perimeter fences, and electronic surveillance systems.
Offender Management & Institutional Justice
• Logistical Movements: Direct and monitor all offender movement within the facility, including high-risk transports, recreation, transfers, and medical lines.
• Accountability Metrics: Authorize and verify official facility offender counts, investigating any discrepancies immediately.
• Admissions & Releases: Oversee the intake of new admissions and verify the absolute accuracy of release or discharge paperwork to prevent improper releases.
• Administrative Hearings: Serve as an objective Disciplinary Hearing Officer when designated, reviewing evidence and rendering decisions on offender rule violations.
• De-escalation: Arbitrate high-tension disputes between offenders or between staff and offenders, utilizing verbal de-escalation techniques to maintain institutional order.
Conditions of Employment:
Candidates must possess the capability to meet the following operational, screening, medical, and physical requirements, with or without reasonable accommodation, to maintain employment.
Training, Licensure & Medical Screening
• Mandatory Certification: Successfully complete the South Dakota Department of Corrections (SDDOC) Basic Training Academy, passing all written, practical, and reading comprehension assessments.
• Tactical Qualifications: Achieve and maintain department standards for firearms proficiency, armed transport protocols, and defensive tactics.
• Chemical Exposure: Tolerate direct exposure to Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) spray during initial training and subsequent operational assignments.
• Medical Clearance: Complete a mandatory Tuberculosis (TB) screening upon hire and participate in ongoing institutional health protocols.
Physical & Tactical Capabilities
• Mobility & Agility: Maintain the physical strength and stamina required for prolonged walking, standing, and climbing stairs within a secure environment.
• Range of Motion: Demonstrate the full range of motion necessary to lift arms above the head, kick to waist height, and pivot the torso 90 degrees from a fixed stance.
• Functional Flexibility: Drop to one or both knees and return to a standing position repeatedly without assistance.
• Defensive Tactics: Execute authorized defensive strikes using hands, arms, palms, shins, and feet during training and tactical interventions.
• Impact Tolerance: Absorb low-speed or safety-bag physical impacts safely during defensive tactics training.
• Physical Control: Seize, stabilize, hold, and subdue non-compliant or assaultive individuals to execute controlled takedowns and maintain facility safety.
• Sensory Awareness: Maintain acute visual and auditory acuity to detect, evaluate, and respond to immediate security threats.
Operational & Environmental Demands
• Scheduling Flexibility: Work a rotating schedule, including 12-hour shifts, days, evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays.
• Crisis Management: Perform duties effectively in high-stress environments characterized by volatile, assaultive, or emotionally disturbed offender behaviors.
• Interpersonal Professionalism: Interact tactfully, objectively, and calmly with individuals displaying erratic, hostile, or unpredictable moods.
• Cultural Competence: Work professionally and collaboratively within a diverse environment encompassing all genders, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
• Environmental Adaptation: Adapt to fluctuating noise levels and extreme temperature variations, including indoor concrete facilities and outdoor conditions during inclement weather.
• Travel Readiness: Maintain the willingness and flexibility to travel for official business, transports, or training as required.
Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Advanced Knowledge of:
• Comprehensive DOC policies, institutional operating procedures, state statutes, and constitutional law regarding offender rights.
• Modern penological principles, practices, and physical security methods required to control a diverse offender population safely.
• Offender psychology, behavioral patterns, indicators of radicalization, and institutional subcultures.
• Advanced supervisory techniques, progressive discipline philosophies, and strategic workforce management.
• The formal Use of Force Policy, tactical communication, and the physical force continuum.
Demonstrated Ability to:
• Communicate with absolute professionalism, clarity, and authority under extreme pressure with staff, offenders, and external stakeholders.
• Serve as a highly visible, positive role model, fostering a culture of mutual respect and high morale within the facility.
• Interpret, apply, and defend complex department regulations, institutional adjustments, and legal mandates.
• Plan, assign, delegate, and audit the work of a diverse team of subordinate security personnel.
• Build cohesive, collaborative partnerships across distinct clinical, administrative, and security departments.
• Conduct objective, analytical investigations into complex incidents, evaluate conflicting evidence, and draft precise findings.
• Remain calm, decisive, and execution-focused during fluid, high-stress emergency situations.
• Maintain an exemplary attendance record and model responsible, policy-compliant leave usage.
• Manage highly sensitive, confidential personnel and institutional intelligence files with total discretion.
• Direct the safe operation, inventory, and training of authorized facility equipment, communications gear, and chemical/physical restraint systems.
This position is eligible for Veterans' Preference per ARSD 55:10:02:08.
Successful applicant(s) will be required to undergo a background investigation. An arrest/conviction record will not necessarily bar employment. Offers of employment are conditional upon successful completion of a drug screening.
Successful applicant(s) will undergo an abuse and neglect screening.
The State of South Dakota does not sponsor work visas for new or existing employees. All persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and complete an Employment Eligibility Verification, Form I-9. The State of South Dakota as an employer will be using E-Verify to complete employment eligibility verification upon hire.
The State of South Dakota offers $0 premium employee health insurance option plus eleven paid holidays, generous vacation and sick leave accrual, dental, vision, and other insurance options, and retirement benefits. You can view our benefits information here . This position is a member of Class A retirement under SDRS.
Must apply online: https://gen-stateofsouthdako-trn.inforcloudsuite.com/hcm/xmlhttp/shorturl.do?key=48Y
You must apply online, emailed resumes or submissions will not be accepted.
South Dakota Bureau of Human Resources
Telephone: 605.773.3148 Email: careers@state.sd.us
http://bhr.sd.gov/workforus
"An Equal Opportunity Employer"
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