The Detention Center
Pipestone County Jail
- Operated byPipestone County Sheriff's Office
- Licensed capacity19 beds (secure, coed) per the 12/09/2025 DOC inspection report
- License classLocal Adult Detention Facility (90 Day Lockup)
- On-site jail administrator named in the DOC reportTyler Rippentrop
- Population on day of inspectionNot stated in the extracted report content
- PREA policy published on county's own site"Sexual activity and behaviors of any kind are not allowed in the Pipestone County Jail" — a zero-tolerance policy statement, not audit results
- Custody/roster link publishedThe county's own jail-information page links to a custody list at https://custody.pcmn.us/Custody.html (that separate domain itself could not be rendered — robots.txt fetch failure — so its content was not independently verified)
- FeesThe page states "Anyone with an outstanding bill with the Pipestone County Jail will be denied inmate visitation unless a payment is made until the bill is paid in full," but no fee schedule or rate amounts are published
Source: Pipestone County — Jail Information · 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
- Beds19 (per MN DOC 12/09/2025 inspection report)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Keith Vreeman
- Runs the jailYes — the Pipestone 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)
- ContactPhone 507-825-1100; email keith.vreeman@pipestonecounty.gov
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Pipestone County 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.
Minnesota District Court (judicial district covering Pipestone 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
- prea is scored 'no' even though the county's jail-information page states a zero-tolerance sexual-abuse policy, because the check asks for PREA audit results, not a policy statement, and no audit result is published.
- roster is scored 'yes' because the county's own jail-information page itself links out to a named custody-list system for the jail; the custody.pcmn.us page itself could not be rendered this session to verify its live content.
- A separate warrant/custody system at co.pipestone.mn.us/letg/Warrant.html could not be rendered (robots.txt fetch failure).
- Not found — not opened within this session's budget. Minnesota counties are generally governed by an elected Board of County Commissioners.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Pipestone 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