The Detention Center
Mower County Jail
- Operated byMower County Sheriff's Office
- Named on county's own siteThe county's own Inmate Mail policy document (opened successfully) refers throughout to "Mower County Jail" and its Turnkey/canteen account system
- RosterA live, public in/out custody roster is published on the county's own subdomain, updated continuously (checked 9/17/2026 9:15 PM), showing name, age, city, booking/release date-time, charges, arresting agency, custody status and bail amount set
- Jail administrator (per DOC inspection report, not the county's own site)James Brown — named in the MN DOC's 01/08/2026 inspection report; not independently confirmed on the county's own site, so jail_administrator is recorded as null per the sheriff-is-jailer default
- Capacity, budget, deaths, PREA, inspections, contracts, bond/bail guidance, fee ratesNot found on the pages actually opened (roster subdomain, Inmate Mail policy document); the county's main Sheriff's Office and County Jail pages could not be opened (robots.txt fetch failures on repeated attempts)
- Also sourced toMower County — Inmate Mail policy — https://www.co.mower.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/1107/Inmate-Mail-PDF
Source: Mower County Jail — live in-custody 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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Steve Sandvik
- Source of nameNamed as sheriff in the Minnesota DOC's Mower County Jail inspection report dated 01/08/2026 — a state source, not the county's own site (the county's own Sheriff's Office pages repeatedly refused WebFetch)
- Runs the jailYes — elected sheriff has charge and custody of the county jail under Minn. Stat. 387.11 and is responsible for its operation and condition under Minn. Stat. 641.14 (MN state layer)
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Mower County Jail Inspection Report, 01/08/2026 · 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.
Third Judicial District — Mower County District Court
- 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
- Mower County's main website (www.co.mower.mn.us) repeatedly failed to open on most paths (robots.txt fetch timeouts), across multiple retries on the County Jail page, Sheriff's Office page, and two staff directory pages. Two county-domain resources did open successfully — a live jail-roster subdomain and one DocumentCenter PDF — and those are the only basis for the 'named' and 'roster' yes-answers; the rest are recorded 'no' for lack of an opened county source, not as a finding that the county withholds them.
- The MN DOC lists Mower County Jail inspection reports dated 2026 (with a 2026 Corrective Action Response Letter), 2023, 2022, 2020 and 2019. The 2026 report was opened directly and is the basis for state_inspection below.
- Not found on an opened page — Minnesota counties are generally governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners; Mower County's own board/agenda pages could not be opened (robots.txt fetch failures).
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Mower 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