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

The Detention Center

Hubbard County Jail

Operated byHubbard County Sheriff's Office
County's own naming"The Law Enforcement Center houses the Sheriff's Office and the Hubbard County Jail." — Hubbard County Sheriff's Office page
Address203 Court Avenue, Park Rapids, MN 56470 (Law Enforcement Center)
Approved capacity116 beds, Secure Coed (MN DOC inspection report)
Operational capacity104.40 beds at 90% of approved capacity (MN DOC inspection report)
Population on inspection dayNot found — the 2026 DOC report gives approved/operational capacity but no same-day population count
What was triedcounty's own 'Serving Time At HCDC' page (https://www.co.hubbard.mn.us/index.asp?SEC=%7B12BB8B49-8F69-4BEF-955A-CDD1E185801B%7D) and a 'Corrections/Communications' page were both refused by the site's robots rules; the county homepage itself also refused

Source: Hubbard County Sheriff's Office · 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 Hubbard 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
Beds116 approved (MN DOC inspection report, 2026)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Cory Aukes

Runs the jailYes — the elected sheriff; Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14 make the sheriff responsible for the jail's charge, custody, operation and condition statewide
How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Minn. Stat. 382.01), statewide pattern
Source of nameNot confirmed on the county's own site — pages opened (Sheriff's Office landing page, records page) did not name the sitting sheriff. Name is from the Minnesota DOC's May 2026 licensing inspection report for this facility.

Still needed

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

Source: MN DOC Adult Facility Inspection Report — Hubbard County, 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.

Ninth Judicial District — District Court

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

The county's own site was reachable for its Sheriff's Office landing page and a records page, but its homepage, its 'Serving Time At HCDC' jail page, and a 'Corrections/Communications' page all returned robots.txt refusals when fetched — those specific pages could not be examined, so checks not confirmed there are recorded 'no' rather than left blank, since the site as a whole was not closed.
No county commissioners/board page could be opened.
Board of County Commissioners — not confirmed. The site's dynamic index.asp pages and homepage were refused by the site's own robots rules during this research; no board roster page was successfully opened.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Hubbard 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