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

The Detention Center

Adult Detention Center (ADC)

Operated byOlmsted County Sheriff's Office
Address101 4th Street SE, Rochester, Minnesota 55904-3719
Capacity (per county's own site)202 beds (males and females)
Capacity (per MN DOC 2024 inspection report — discrepancy noted, not resolved)230 beds total (60 minimum secure + 170 secure)
Year built / expansionsOriginal 100-bed facility opened 1993, later expanded to 202 beds; a Work Release Facility (WRF) opened in 2003
ModelDescribed by the county as a "direct supervision facility" with on-site deputy supervision, contracted food service, health care and phone services, plus educational, recreational and religious programming
RosterThe county's own ADC page links to a "Who is in Custody?" tool
Inmate funds / commissaryDeposits accepted online via Inmate Canteen (capped at $500 per card per detainee per 30 days) or in person by kiosk at the WRF or ADC; a negative balance is deducted first. No specific commissary, phone or video-visit rate figures were found on the pages opened
BudgetThe county's own 2026 Budget in Brief document (opened directly) mentions the ADC only in a narrative note — "In 2026, Olmsted County is adding a Program Sergeant at the Adult Detention Center (ADC)" — without stating its cost; no itemized detention/corrections budget figure was found
Deaths, PREA, independent inspection results, contractsNot found on the pages opened
Also sourced toOlmsted County — 2026 Budget in Brief — https://www.olmstedcounty.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/OlmstedCounty2026BudgetinBriefWebsite.pdf

Source: Olmsted County — About the Adult Detention Center (ADC) · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓Beds and daily population
✗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 Olmsted 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 built1993 (original 100-bed facility)
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds202 (per county's own site) / 230 total per the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report — discrepancy not resolved from sources opened

Since then

Expanded from the original 100-bed facility to 202 beds; Work Release Facility (WRF) opened 2003

The Sheriff

Sheriff Kevin Torgerson

SourceConfirmed on the county's own Sheriff's Office contact page ("The current sheriff of Olmsted County is Kevin Torgerson") and independently in the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report of the Adult Detention Center
Runs the jailYes — the Sheriff's Office directly operates the Adult Detention Center (ADC) as a "direct supervision facility"
How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term under Minn. Stat. 382.01 (MN state layer)

Still needed

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

Source: Olmsted County — Contact the Sheriff's Office · 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 — Olmsted County 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
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Olmsted County is the substantial jail in this group, as flagged in the brief, and its own site does yield real, county-published facts: the ADC's name, address, capacity, year built/expanded, roster access, and inmate-funds procedures. A 2026 Budget in Brief document was opened directly but does not itemize a detention/corrections budget figure. A dedicated county-board (commissioners) page and the Sheriff's Office 2025 Annual Report were both attempted but refused by WebFetch on repeated tries within this session's budget.
A capacity discrepancy exists between the county's own current site (202 beds) and the MN DOC's 2024 inspection report (230 beds total) — both are recorded above rather than reconciled, since reconciling them was not possible from sources opened here.
Not found on an opened page — Olmsted County is governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners; a dedicated county-board page (olmstedcounty.gov/government/county-board) was attempted but refused by WebFetch (provenance error) within this session's budget.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Olmsted 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