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

The Detention Center

Faribault County Jail

Operated byFaribault County Sheriff's Office
Location320 Dr. H. Russ Street, Blue Earth, MN 56013
Licensed/approved capacity62 beds, Secure Coed (MN DOC biennial inspection, 02/04/2026)
Jail administrator named in state inspectionMissy Sonnek — titled role under the sheriff, not a separate county department; treated per brief as not meeting the jail_administrator bar
County site page confirming the jail's namehttps://www.co.faribault.mn.us/sheriffs-office/pages/inmate-commissary-and-account-system (titled 'Faribault County Jail: Account & Commissary Information')
What was triedhttps://www.co.faribault.mn.us/home/pages/sheriff-jail and https://www.co.faribault.mn.us/sheriffs-office and https://www.co.faribault.mn.us/ and https://www.co.faribault.mn.us/boards and https://www.co.faribault.mn.us/contacts-directory all refused by WebFetch (robots.txt fetch failed / ConnectTimeout) on repeated attempts

Source: Faribault County — Inmate Commissary and Account System · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗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 — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Faribault 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
Beds62 (Secure Coed, per MN DOC biennial inspection 02/04/2026 — state source, not county)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Scott Adams

Runs the jailYes — elected sheriff has charge and custody of the county jail under Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14
How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01
Named inMN DOC biennial inspection report dated 02/04/2026

Still needed

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

Source: MN DOC — Faribault County Biennial Inspection 2026 · 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 Faribault County

Not found

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

Faribault County's own domain (co.faribault.mn.us) intermittently refused WebFetch with a robots.txt error across many separate attempts on many different pages; only two pages loaded successfully across the whole session (the commissary/account page and, via WebSearch snippets only, page titles for a 'Sheriff & Jail' page, an 'Inmate Commissary' page, and a 'Sentence to Service' page). Because most pages could not be opened, most checks are recorded 'no' for lack of a page actually read, not as a claim the county publishes nothing — see 'What was tried' in jail.facts.
State DOC biennial inspection (02/04/2026, license class Local Adult Detention Facility under MN Rule 2911) recorded two standards not met: Rule 2911.2525 (Admissions) — "A review of four inmate files identified that none of the screenings were scored and did not indicate whether the inmate met criteria for a mental health referral"; and Rule 2911.3800 (Food Handling Practices) — "The facility was unable to provide documentation that a health inspection was completed within the last 12 months." These are the standards as recorded by the state; they are not characterized here as violations.
Governed by the Faribault County Board of Commissioners. A dedicated 'Boards' page exists on the county site (https://www.co.faribault.mn.us/boards) but WebFetch could not open it (robots.txt fetch failed).

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Faribault 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