The Detention Center
Pennington County Jail
- Operated byPennington County Sheriff's Office
- Licensed capacity92 beds (secure, coed) per the 05/19/2025 DOC inspection report
- License classJail (Minn. Rules ch. 2911 Class III — sentenced inmates up to statutory limits and pretrial/presentenced detainees indefinitely, per MN state layer)
- On-site jail administrator named in the DOC reportDave Casanova
- Population on day of inspectionNot stated in the extracted report content
- What was triedThe county's own site (co.pennington.mn.us) links its Sheriff's Office out to a separate domain, penningtonsheriff.org, which WebFetch could not open (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED, not answered) — so jail roster, capacity, budget, fees and bond guidance could not be checked on a sheriff-controlled page. The county's own department index and homepage were opened directly and contain no jail-specific content of their own.
Source: MN DOC — Pennington County Jail Facility Inspection Report (05/19/2025) · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗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
- Beds92 (per MN DOC 05/19/2025 inspection report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Seth Vettleson
- Runs the jailYes — the Pennington County Jail. The 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)
- Named inMN DOC Pennington County Jail inspection report dated 05/19/2025
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: MN DOC — Pennington County Jail Facility Inspection Report (05/19/2025) · 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 Pennington 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
- Pennington County's own site (co.pennington.mn.us) was opened successfully (homepage and government-category page), but it does not itself publish any of the ten items — it links the Sheriff's Office out to penningtonsheriff.org, which WebFetch refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED) on repeated attempts. All ten checks are scored 'no' because the county's own domain was genuinely examined and does not publish these items itself, not because the site could not be opened at all.
- All facts about the jail (capacity, license class, named jail administrator) come from the state DOC inspection report, which per the brief cannot itself satisfy any transparency check, including 'inspections'.
- Minnesota counties are governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners; Pennington County's site lists a "County Board & Committees" section.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pennington 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