The Detention Center
Hennepin County Adult Detention Center (ADC)
- Operated byHennepin County Sheriff's Office
- Approved/operational capacity835 beds approved; operationally limited to 700 with special conditions (MN DOC 2025 inspection)
- Public jail roster tooljailroster.hennepin.us — a Hennepin County Sheriff public in-custody search site; it returned a 'system is currently unavailable' error when checked on 2026-09-18, but its design and branding ('Hennepin County Sheriff - Jail Roster') confirm it as the county's public roster tool
- Separate facility: Adult Corrections Facility (ACF)A Plymouth, MN facility (mailing address 1145 Shenandoah Lane, Plymouth, MN 55447) for sentenced residents; run through DOCCR rather than the Sheriff's Office. The county's own ACF page describes reporting/admission procedures and states 'Fees may be assessed during your stay depending on the programming options you participate in,' but does not publish a dollar figure
- 2025 conditional license amendmentThe MN DOC issued a '3rd Amendment to Conditional License Order' for Hennepin County dated 8/28/2025, indicating the ADC's license carries conditions (a state licensing action, not a county disclosure)
Source: Hennepin County Sheriff — Jail Roster · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓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 — 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
- Beds835 approved / 700 operational (MN DOC 2025 inspection — state source)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dawanna Witt
- Runs the Adult Detention CenterYes — the MN DOC's 2025 inspection report for the Hennepin County ADC is issued to Sheriff Dawanna Witt; the 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
- Separate county department for a different facilityHennepin County also runs the Adult Corrections Facility (ACF), a Plymouth workhouse-type facility for sentenced residents, under the county's Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation (DOCCR) — DOCCR is a distinct county department, described on the county's own site as 'the largest community corrections organization in Minnesota,' serving 'more than 26,000 adult and juvenile clients.' This is a separate facility from the Sheriff-run Adult Detention Center that the DOC inspection covers, so jail_administrator is left null here (the ADC itself remains sheriff-run); see jail.facts for the ACF/DOCCR detail
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Hennepin ADC Inspection Report 2025 · 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.
Hennepin County District Court (Fourth Judicial District)
- 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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Hennepin County runs at least two distinct adult facilities: the Sheriff-operated Adult Detention Center (ADC, the DOC-inspected downtown facility) and the DOCCR-operated Adult Corrections Facility (ACF) in Plymouth for sentenced residents. This is a real structural finding — detention is split between the elected Sheriff (ADC) and a separate county department, DOCCR (ACF) — even though jail_administrator is recorded null here because the ADC itself, the facility the state inspection and this record otherwise track, remains under the elected sheriff.
- A budget-and-finance PDF (2024 County Board resolution packet) and a Community Corrections and Rehabilitation Act comprehensive-plan PDF were both attempted and returned HTTP 403 errors from hennepin.us; a Board 'dashboard' page for public safety covered only probation/parole violation definitions, with no ADC capacity, population, budget, deaths, PREA, or inspection data. wwwprd.hennepin.us/sheriff and www.hennepin.us/sheriff could not be opened (robots-blocked / not in the fetch provenance set).
- No numeric phone/video/commissary rate figures, published budget figures for the ADC specifically, deaths-in-custody disclosures, PREA audit results, independent inspection results, or agency-boarding contracts with rates were found on the county's own site within this session's search and fetch budget.
- Governed by the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hennepin 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