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 byCook County Sheriff's Office
- Address143 Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, MN 55604 (per DOC inspection report)
- Approved capacity15 beds (per DOC inspection report)
- Jail administrator named in DOC reportBen Hallberg
- Also a member of a regional facilityPer the Minnesota state layer (river_states.json, key MN), Cook County is one of five member counties — with Carlton, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis — of the joint-powers Arrowhead Regional Corrections agency, which runs the Northeast Regional Corrections Center (NERCC) in Saginaw. This is in addition to, not instead of, Cook's own county jail, which is separately licensed and inspected.
- What was triedEvery page fetched on the co.cook.mn.us / www.co.cook.mn.us domain returned a robots.txt disallow: the home page (https://www.co.cook.mn.us/), the Sheriff department page (https://co.cook.mn.us/government/departments/sheriff/), the jail page (https://www.co.cook.mn.us/index.php/sheriffdivisions/jail), a news item (https://co.cook.mn.us/news_detail_T6_R570.php), a document viewer link (https://co.cook.mn.us/index.php?id=686&task=document.viewdoc), and the jail roster PDF (https://co.cook.mn.us/Jail_Website_Roster_-_Cook_2025-05-02_07.25.56.pdf). No alternate Cook County or sheriff domain was found. The county's own site could not be opened in this session.
Source: MN DOC — Cook County Jail Inspection Report · 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
- Beds15 beds per MN DOC inspection report; not independently published by the county
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Pat Eliasen
- Runs the jailYes — elected sheriff has charge and custody of the county jail under Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14 (MN state layer)
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Cook County Jail Inspection Report, dated 10/10/2024 (issued 10/18/2024) · 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 (judicial district covering Cook 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
- Cook County's own site (co.cook.mn.us / www.co.cook.mn.us) genuinely could not be opened: every URL fetched (home page, sheriff department page, jail page, a news item, a document link, and the posted jail roster PDF) was refused by that domain's robots.txt. Per instructions, audit.checks is left as an empty object rather than recorded as ten 'no' answers — nobody looked, this is not a finding that the county discloses nothing.
- Not found — Cook County's own site could not be opened
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Cook 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