Whether the crime rate in South Dakota is growing depends on how you look at the reports.
Governor Dennis Daugaard says the key is violent crime……..

While arrest rates have risen steadily since 2008, murders reported in the state have stayed about the same year to year.
Daugaard says the crime rate includes a number of non-violent offenses…..

Daugaard says the majority of the rise in crime is fueled by illegal drugs…..

According to the annual state crime report, there were about thirty-one hundred drug arrests in 2007. That rose to over eight two hundred in 2017.