Carver County, Minnesota — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Carver County Jail

Operated byCarver County Sheriff's Office
Address600 East 4th Street, Chaska, MN 55318 (Carver County Sheriff's Office and Justice Center)
Licensed capacity115 beds, secure coed (per 12/31/2024 DOC inspection report)
Assistant Jail Administrator named in DOC reportBen Beyer
Facility size / bookings68,000 square feet; approximately 3,500 inmate bookings a year with an average 5–10 day stay, per the county's own Jail Services FAQ

Source: Carver County — Jail Services · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✗PREA audits — not published
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✓Phone, video and commissary rates

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Carver County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-18. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds115 (licensed capacity per DOC inspection report); the county's own site gives facility size (68,000 sq ft) but not a bed count

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Jason Kamerud

Runs the jailYes — the elected sheriff, per Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14
TermElected, 4-year term (Minn. Stat. 382.01) — statewide rule, not independently confirmed for Carver County

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: MN DOC — Carver County Jail Inspection Report, 12/31/2024 · 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 (First Judicial District, which the county's own materials associate with Carver County)

Not found — no county-published or court-published judge roster for Carver County was opened within the search budget

Still needed

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

'prea' scored 'no': the county's Jail Services page states a zero-tolerance PREA policy and gives a reporting line, but that is a policy statement, not a published PREA audit result, so it does not satisfy this check as written.
'roster' cites the county's own landing page for the daily inmate roster (updated every two hours, per that page); the live roster tool itself sits at a separate GIS subdomain (gis.carvercountymn.gov) that could not be independently opened in this session, but the county's own page confirms the roster exists and is public.
'fees' cites the county's own Fees and Inmate Services page, which states a jail fee schedule has been 'approved by the County Board'; the specific dollar rates were on a linked document not independently opened in this session.
Five-member Carver County Board of Commissioners: Lisa Anderson (District 1), Tom Workman, Chair (District 2), Matt Udermann (District 3), Tim Lynch, Vice-Chair (District 4), John P. Fahey (District 5), per the county's own board page. (Wikipedia's list, last apparently updated around September 2024, names a different District 1 commissioner — Gayle Degler — so the county's own current page was treated as authoritative.)

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Carver 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