The Detention Center
Fillmore County Detention Center (also called Fillmore County Jail)
- Operated byFillmore County Sheriff's Office
- Location901 NW Houston St, Preston, MN 55965
- Approved capacity26 beds approved; operational capacity 22.1 beds (MN DOC 2026 inspection)
- Jail Administrator named in state inspectionJamie Fenske — a role under the sheriff, not a separate county department per the county's own site
- VisitingTuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30pm–4:30pm and 7pm–9pm; photo ID required (county FAQ page)
Source: Fillmore County — Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓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
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds26 approved / 22.1 operational (MN DOC 2026 inspection — state source)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Not found
- 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
- What was triedThe MN DOC 2026 inspection report for Fillmore County did not state the sheriff's name in the excerpt read; https://www.co.fillmore.mn.us/departments/sheriff/index.php and https://www.co.fillmore.mn.us/departments/sheriff/contact_sheriff_s_office.php were not fetched within this session's budget
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Fillmore County 2026 inspection report · 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 Fillmore 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
- The county's PREA page (departments/sheriff/jail/prea_-_audits___inspections.php) links to downloadable 'PREA Annual Report' PDFs for 2017, 2018 and 2019; no report newer than 2019 was found linked there, and the jail's separate FAQ/general PREA page states the facility 'is currently in the process of undergoing our PREA audit' (i.e., as of that page's writing, no completed current-cycle audit result was posted alongside the older annual reports).
- The roster page (current_inmate_jail_roster.php) states the in-custody list 'shows who is in jail (arrests) on any given day' and 'is updated daily,' with a disclaimer that the sheriff's office cannot guarantee it is current, accurate, or complete at any given time; it links out to a separate inmate database rather than embedding the list.
- No capacity, budget, deaths, inspections, contracts, or numeric phone/video/commissary fee figures were found on the county's own site within this session's fetches; the FAQ names Reliance Telephone (phone cards) and inmatecanteen.com (deposits) as vendors but does not publish rates.
- Governed by the Fillmore County Board of Commissioners. Not independently verified within this research's search budget.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Fillmore 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