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 byKoochiching County Sheriff's Office
- Jail Administrator (title under the sheriff, per DOC report)Carrie Geiss
- Licensed/approved capacity40 beds (approved); 34 beds (operational), per DOC report
- What was triedKoochiching County's own site was attempted at both https://www.co.koochiching.mn.us/183/Jail and https://www.koochiching.gov/179/Law-Enforcement-Center; both domains, and their homepages, returned repeated 'robots.txt fetch failed' errors (DNS/ConnectTimeout) across multiple retries and could not be opened
Source: MN DOC inspection report (Koochiching County, 09/14/2026) · 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
- Beds40 approved / 34 operational, per MN DOC inspection report; not independently published by the county
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Perryn Hedlund
- 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 under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer) — statewide fact; not independently confirmed for Koochiching because the county's own site could not be opened
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC inspection report (Koochiching County, 09/14/2026) · 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.
- 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
- Koochiching County's own website could not be opened: both https://www.co.koochiching.mn.us and https://www.koochiching.gov returned repeated robots.txt fetch failures across multiple attempts on multiple pages. Per instructions, audit.checks is left as an empty object rather than recorded as ten 'no' answers.
- Minnesota's state layer notes Koochiching as a member of the Arrowhead Regional Corrections joint-powers agency (which runs the Northeast Regional Corrections Center, NERCC, in Saginaw for Carlton, Cook, Koochiching, Lake and St. Louis Counties). However, the MN DOC's 2026 inspection report is for a standalone, separately licensed 'Koochiching County Jail' with its own sheriff, jail administrator and capacity — indicating the county currently operates its own facility rather than relying solely on the regional NERCC facility. Which arrangement handles overflow, if any, was NOT established within this budget.
- Koochiching County Board of Commissioners — not confirmed; the county's own site could not be opened
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Koochiching 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