State Forces Minneapolis Jail to Ship Out Detainees
Facing persistent and critical short staffing, commissioners in Minnesota’s Hennepin County voted on December 3, 2024, to spend $5.4 million to ship 266 of over 800 detainees from the county jail to lockups in other Minnesota counties. The state Department of Corrections (DOC) had given Sheriff Dewanna Witt until December 5, 2024, to reduce the jail population to no more than 600 detainees or the county would lose its jail license.
The Hennepin County Adult Detention Center, the state’s busiest jail, consists of a 500-bed lockup on the upper two floors of the Minneapolis City Hall plus another 330 beds in the county Public Safety Facility nearby. However, the combined jail operations were short 47 guards, nearly 20% of a required staff of 247, prompting DOC’s threat to yank its license.
Sheriff Witt trotted out a host of objections to the DOC order, which she called inaccurate and noncompliant with state law, in a challenge filed on November 27, 2024. Plus, she argued, she has no control over how many people are arrested and brought to the lockup, nor can she help that the average length of stay is up nearly 20% because nine out of 10 detainees face felony charges. The jail was also being singled out unfairly, she said, since other jails in Minnesota also facing staffing shortages were not threatened with license revocation.
But some county commissioners were more concerned with ensuring detainees retain access to mental health and other services, as well as how far their families and loved ones would have to travel to visit them if shipped to jails in counties far from Minneapolis. As a result, Witt’s proposed list of 21 receiving county jails was whittled down to seven, and she was ordered to make as much use as possible of the county’s Adult Corrections Facility, which typically holds prisoners serving sentences of a year or less.
Commissioners also authorized a new “rapid response” team to improve jail staff recruitment and training.
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune
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