Perkins County
2,853 people, served by 2 police agencies that report to the FBI.
How a case moves here
Perkins County follows South Dakota law on arrests, release, and courts. These rules are the same in every county in the state; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A clerk magistrate, a court clerk who is not a lawyer, usually sets the first bond or grants personal recognizance from the presiding judge's fine and bond schedule, for felonies as well as misdemeanors. Murder, first-degree manslaughter, and kidnapping go to a circuit or magistrate judge. Domestic abuse bond is set by a magistrate judge or circuit judge.
SDCL 16-12C-10SDCL 16-2-21UJS Fine and Bond Schedule for Use by Clerk Magistrates- Time to see a judge
Police must take an arrested person before the nearest available committing magistrate without unnecessary delay. South Dakota law sets no number of hours.
SDCL 23A-4-1- Money bail
South Dakota courts may set money bond, and clerk magistrates set it from a dollar range in the bond schedule.
SDCL 16-12C-10UJS Fine and Bond Schedule for Use by Clerk Magistrates- Courts
The circuit court tries felonies and other criminal cases. Magistrate courts, run under the circuit courts, hear misdemeanors and ordinance violations when a magistrate judge presides, and petty offenses and bond setting when a clerk magistrate presides. There are no city or county courts.
South Dakota Unified Judicial System, Guide to South Dakota CourtsSDCL 16-12B-11SDCL 16-12C-11- Judges and magistrates
Voters elect circuit judges to eight-year terms in nonpolitical elections, and the governor fills vacancies from nominees picked by the Judicial Qualifications Commission. The presiding judge of each circuit appoints law-trained magistrate judges to four-year terms. Clerk magistrates are court clerks with special training who need only a high school education.
SDCL 12-9-1State Bar of South Dakota, South Dakota's court systemSDCL 16-12B-1.2, 16-12B-1.3SDCL 16-12C-2
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. The 8-year circuit term is from the State Bar page; the constitution page would not render. Whether jailers apply the bond schedule with no clerk magistrate is unknown. The state's attorney's term length and the 2023 state Office of Indigent Legal Services' role were not checked.
What this county does differently
Nothing county-specific yet
Cities and towns
- Lemmon1,208
- Bison town406
- Lincoln township164
- Chance township83
- Foster township80
- Flat Creek township69
- Bison township59
- Grand River township51
- Strool-Plateau township46
- Trail township43
- Rainbow township42
- De Witt township38
- Lone Tree township34
- Glendo township33
- Moreau township29
- Barrett township28
- Wells township22
- Beck-Highland township21
- Duell township16
- Antelope township15
- Horse Creek township15
- Rockford township12
- Marshfield township11
- Sidney township11
- Cash township10
- Chaudoin township10
- Meadow township10
- Ada township7
- Englewood township5
- Vrooman township4
- Hall township3
- Vail township3
- Scotch Cap township1
- Burdick township0
- Clark township0
- Fredlund township0
- Liberty township0
- Lodgepole township0
- Maltby township0
- Martin township0
- White Butte township0
- Wilson township0
Every city, village, town, and township with any of its land in Perkins County, largest first. Population, the whole place's: Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024.
Police agencies
- Perkins County Sheriff's OfficeSheriff or county police2,830 served
- No name SD0520100City police department1,138 served
Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29. An agency that serves several counties appears on each. Population served is the FBI's figure.
Crime
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | South Dakota |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 373 | |
| Murder | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 3.9 | |||||
| Rape | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 56 | ||||
| Robbery | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 23 | |||||
| Aggravated assault | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 290 | |
| Property crime | 12 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 18 | 342 | 1,695 |
| Burglary | 1 | 3 | 5 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 235 | ||
| Larceny | 11 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 12 | 235 | 1,235 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 1 | 4 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 225 | ||
| Arson | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 7.3 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | South Dakota |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 24 | 24 | 24 | 30 | 30 | 939 | 3,675 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 4 | 7 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 242 | 1,228 |
| Vandalism | 9 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 142 | 533 |
| Fraud | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 224 | |||
| Drug abuse violations | 4 | 13 | 9 | 16 | 19 | 434 | 1,326 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 1 | 1 | 3 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 112 | ||
| Embezzlement | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 24 | ||||
| Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) | 5 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 66 | |||
| Other Group A offenses | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 60 |
Offenses agencies in Perkins County reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the reporting agencies police, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside South Dakota's rate over the same years. Agencies that reported part of a year are counted with their people, as the state's rates count them. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. South Dakota: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.