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

The Detention Center

Todd County Detention Center

Operated byTodd County Sheriff's Office
Address115 3rd St. S, Long Prairie, MN 56347
Licensed capacity52 beds (secure, coed), per the county's own site and the 04/09/2025 DOC report; expanded from an original 24-bed capacity in 1985 per the county's own site
Jail administrator named in DOC reportScott Wright
Also holds other counties' inmatesThe county's own site states the facility 'also holds inmates from other counties,' though no contract terms or rates are published

Source: Todd County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-18

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✓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 Todd 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
Beds52 (expanded from 24 in 1985, per the county's own site)

Since then

Expanded from an initial 24-bed capacity to 52 beds in 1985, per the county's own site

The Sheriff

Sheriff Not found

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)
Why 'Not found'The county's own sheriff page shows a historical roster of past sheriffs running through 'Don Asmus' with a 2014 date, but does not confirm a current, sitting sheriff, and no other page opened this session named one. A sheriff who left office is worse than 'Not found.'

Still needed

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

Source: Todd 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.

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

Michael Fritz (Chief Judge)
Shan Wang (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 →

Notes on the record

A daily inmate roster PDF was referenced in an older search-indexed URL (co.todd.mn.us/departments/sheriff/inmate_roster and a linked daily_inmate_roster.pdf), but the HTML page returned a 404 and the PDF was blocked by a robots.txt fetch failure on every attempt this session, so 'roster' is recorded 'no' rather than assumed live.
Fees found on the sheriff page (fingerprinting $15, carry-permit processing $75, civil-process $50 deposit) are general sheriff's-office service fees, not jail phone/video-visit/commissary rates, so 'fees' is recorded 'no.'
Todd County Board of Commissioners; the county's own homepage confirms five commissioners by district exist and 'make all of the strategic decisions for the County,' but no distinct board/minutes URL was found before this county's search budget ran out.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Todd 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