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 byMorrison County Sheriff's Office
- Licensed capacity141 beds, approved capacity effective 1/1/2006, per the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report
- Staff contact titled "Jail Administrator"Tony Athman is named as jail administrator in the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report; a Morrison County job posting found via search is titled "Jail Administrator/Lieutenant" under the Sheriff's Office, so jail_administrator is recorded as null per the sheriff-is-jailer default
- What was triedWebSearch allowed_domains=morrisoncountymn.gov,co.morrison.mn.us (1 of the 9-search budget) found a Jail page, a Sheriff page, a Commissary page, an Inmate Services page, and jail/sheriff staff directory pages, but WebFetch of every one of them (and the site root) failed this session with a robots.txt fetch error, so none could be opened to independently confirm the sheriff's name or check capacity, roster, fees, contracts, PREA, or bond information on the county's own site
Source: MN DOC Adult Facilities Inspection Report — Morrison County Jail, 12/12/2024 · 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
- Beds141 (approved capacity effective 1/1/2006, per the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report — a state, not county, source)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Shawn Larsen
- Runs the jailNamed as the Morrison County Sheriff in the MN DOC's December 2024 Adult Facilities Inspection Report for the Morrison County Jail
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer)
- Not independently confirmed on the county's own siteMorrison County's own site (morrisoncountymn.gov), including its /182/SHERIFF page, could not be opened with WebFetch in this session — every attempt failed with a robots.txt fetch error — so this name is sourced to the state DOC inspection report, not to the county's own publishing
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC Adult Facilities Inspection Report — Morrison County Jail, 12/12/2024 · 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 Morrison 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
- Could not open Morrison County's own site within this session — every WebFetch attempt on morrisoncountymn.gov (site root, Jail, Sheriff, Commissary, Inmate Services and staff-directory pages) failed with a robots.txt fetch error. Per the absolute rule, each closed URL was logged and not retried indefinitely; audit.checks is left empty rather than scored as ten 'no' answers, since the county's own site was never actually reached this session.
- Not found — Morrison County's own site could not be opened within this session (robots.txt fetch errors on every attempt). Minnesota counties are generally governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Morrison 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