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 byNot established from an opened source
- What was triedEvery WebFetch attempt against co.nicollet.mn.us and www.co.nicollet.mn.us failed across many retries and URL variants: the main Jail page (/310/Jail, both with and without "www"), the department directory, an FAQ page, and the site root all returned either "robots.txt fetch failed: ConnectTimeout" or a PROVENANCE_REQUIRED timeout; a live-roster subdomain (roster.co.nicollet.mn.us) entered an http/https redirect loop that could not be resolved. One WebSearch scoped to co.nicollet.mn.us (1 of this session's search budget) surfaced real result titles (a Jail page, a Sheriff's Office staff directory, a Community Corrections staff directory, an FAQ, and the Data-Practices document naming the sheriff) but none of the underlying pages could actually be opened.
- MN DOC historyThe DOC's inspection-report index lists a Nicollet County Jail with reports dated 2026 (plus a 2026 Corrective Action Response Letter), 2025 (plus a 2025 Corrective Action Response Letter), 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2020 — an unusually active inspection/corrective-action history within this group — but none of these PDFs could be opened (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED, not resolved on retry)
Source: MN DOC Adult Facilities Inspection Reports (index listing only; PDFs not opened) · 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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dave Lange
- Source and caveatA WebSearch of co.nicollet.mn.us (allowed_domains scoped to that county domain) returned a real search result titled "Sheriff Dave Lange Department/Division: Sher - Nicollet County" for a county Data Practices document at https://www.co.nicollet.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/2180/Sheriffs-Office-Inventory-of-Not-Public-Data-on-Individuals-PDF. The document itself could NOT be opened (robots.txt fetch failure on repeated attempts), so this name is recorded from the search result's own title text, not from content this research actually read inside the document.
- Runs the jailYes, if the county operates one — elected sheriff has charge and custody of the county jail under Minn. Stat. 387.11/641.14 (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: WebSearch result title (document not opened) — Nicollet County Sheriff's Office Inventory of Not Public Data · 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.
Fifth Judicial District — Nicollet 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
- Nicollet County's own site (co.nicollet.mn.us and www.co.nicollet.mn.us, plus its roster.co.nicollet.mn.us subdomain) could not be opened in this session despite roughly a dozen WebFetch attempts across different exact URLs and one dedicated WebSearch. Per the ABSOLUTE RULE and this group's instructions, audit.checks is left empty rather than scored as ten 'no' answers — nobody actually looked at what the county publishes, this research simply could not get the site to load.
- The sheriff's name (Dave Lange) is recorded above from a real WebSearch result's title text rather than from opened page content, and is flagged as such; it should be treated as a lead, not a fully confirmed fact, though it is not an invented name.
- Not found — Nicollet County's own site could not be opened in this session. Minnesota counties are generally governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Nicollet 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