St. Louis County, Minnesota — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

St. Louis County Jail

Operated bySt. Louis County Sheriff's Office
This is the MINNESOTA St. Louis County (Duluth), NOT the Missouri St. Louis County or the independent St. Louis City, both researched elsewhere in this projectConfirmed on every page opened for this entry
Facilities operated directly by the countyA 197-bed jail in Duluth, plus two 72-hour lockups 'on the Range': Hibbing (8 beds) and Virginia (12 beds), per the county's own jail page
Regional facility the county also participates inSt. Louis County is one of five member counties (with Carlton, Cook, Koochiching and Lake) of Arrowhead Regional Corrections, a joint-powers agency that runs the Northeast Regional Corrections Center (NERCC) in Saginaw, licensed as an Adult Correctional Facility (144 beds: 124 minimum-secure male + 20 secure male). NERCC's superintendent, Kathy Lionberger, answers to the joint powers board, not to the St. Louis County Sheriff.
Jail administrator named in DOC reportsJessica Pete (interim, per the 2021 Virginia report; listed without 'interim' in the 2024/2025 reports)
Duluth jail licensed capacity197 beds (approved capacity), per 04/08/2024 DOC report
Hibbing lockup8 beds, secure coed, 72-Hour Holding license class, per 03/06/2025 DOC report — 100% compliance, no standards recorded as not met
Virginia lockup12 beds, secure coed, Class I, per 04/15/2021 DOC report

Source: St. Louis County — About the Jail · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what St. Louis 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 builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds197 (Duluth) + 8 (Hibbing) + 12 (Virginia)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Gordon Ramsay

Runs the jailYes — elected sheriff is jailer under Minn. Stat. 387.11 and 641.14
How the office is filledElected, four-year term (Minn. Stat. 382.01)
Name spelling noteThe 2025 DOC inspection report for the Hibbing lockup spells the name 'Gordon Ramsay'; the 2024 report for the main Duluth jail spells it 'Gordon Ramsey.' Both refer to the same sitting sheriff; the county's own site was not found to spell out the sheriff's name on the pages opened.

Still needed

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

Source: MN DOC — St. Louis County Jail-Hibbing Inspection Report, 03/06/2025 · 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.

District Court — Sixth Judicial District — Chief Judge (as of a May 2024 chief-judge election announcement)

Leslie Beiers (Chief Judge)
Rachel Sullivan (Assistant Chief Judge)

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

A 'Bail Bonds' page exists (https://www.stlouiscountymn.gov/departments-a-z/sheriff/jail/bail-bonds) but was judged not to meet 'clear guidance on how to post bail' — it defines what a bail bond is and notes agents charge '10 to 20 percent of the amount of the bail,' but gives no step-by-step local procedure, so bond_info is recorded 'no.'
The 'fees' credit rests on one published rate: inmate video calls are billed at '$0.25/minute' per the Jail Communication page; phone and commissary rates are not posted on the site itself, only referred to a third-party vendor (Reliance Telephone) by phone number.
Searches of stlouiscountymn.gov turned up no dedicated PREA, detention budget, or inter-agency housing-contract page within the search budget for this county.
St. Louis County Board of Commissioners.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in St. Louis 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