The Detention Center
Not scored. The county's own website was not reachable in the session that produced this record, so its disclosures were never examined. This is a gap in the research, not a finding about the county.
- Operated byNot found
- No facility listed on MN DOC's Adult Facilities Inspection Reports pageConfirmed by direct search of that page's content for 'Big Stone': the page lists no report for Big Stone County, indicating the county most likely runs no jail of its own
- Where its prisoners goNOT established within this group's search/fetch budget — Big Stone County's own website could not be reached to confirm a boarding arrangement with a neighboring county or regional facility
- What was triedhttps://mn.gov/portal/government/local/counties/ and https://www.mncounties.org/aboutmnc/counties/county_websites.php both list bigstonecounty.org as the county's site; https://bigstonecounty.org/, https://bigstonecounty.org/contact_us/contact.php, https://www.bigstonecounty.org/government/sheriff/warrant_list.php, and https://www.co.bigstone.mn.us/ were each attempted and each failed (DNS resolution failure or fetch refusal); a GIS subdomain (gis.bigstonecounty.org) appeared in search results but was not a substitute for the county's substantive pages and was not opened; no WebSearch budget remained to locate a current replacement domain
Source: Not found · checked 2026-09-18
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Not found
- Runs the jailNo county-run jail was found for Big Stone County (see jail entry below)
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer) — statewide fact, not county-specific confirmation
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Not found — Big Stone County's own website could not be opened within this budget (see 'What was tried') · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Minnesota district judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms, but most first reach the bench by gubernatorial appointment to a mid-term vacancy. Bail at first appearance is set by the court under Minn. R. Crim. P. 6.02.
Minnesota District Court (judicial district covering Big Stone County)
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners
Notes on the record
- Big Stone County genuinely could not be opened: its listed domain (bigstonecounty.org, in both www and non-www form) failed to resolve, and a guessed alternate domain (co.bigstone.mn.us) could not be fetched either. Per instructions, audit.checks is left as an empty object rather than recorded as ten 'no' answers.
- Big Stone County has no facility on the MN DOC's Adult Facilities Inspection Reports page, which is itself a finding: the county most likely operates no jail of its own and boards prisoners elsewhere, but which facility was NOT established within this group's search/fetch budget.
- Big Stone County Board of Commissioners — not confirmed; the county's site could not be opened
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Big Stone County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered