The Detention Center
None — Foster County has no jail
- Operated by
- Where Foster County's prisoners are actually heldLake Region Correctional Facility (Devils Lake), Stutsman County Correctional Center (Jamestown), and Barnes County Correctional Center (Valley City) — confirmed directly: each facility's own DOCR inspection report lists Foster County among the counties it houses
- What was triedNo DOCR inspection report exists for Foster County itself, consistent with it having no jail
Source: Lake Region Correctional Facility — DOCR Inspection Report (May 27-28, 2026) · checked 2026-08-25
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot applicable — no county jail
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Justin Johnson
- Runs the jailNo county jail in Foster County
- ElectedYes — NDCC 11-10-02 requires each county to have an elected sheriff, four-year term
- Confirmed twiceNamed on the county's own Sheriff's Office page and on the North Dakota Association of Counties officials directory
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Foster County, ND — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
North Dakota district judges are elected on a nonpartisan ballot to six-year terms (ND Constitution Art. VI, Sec. 1). Midterm vacancies are filled by the Governor from a list submitted by a judicial nominating committee, unless the Governor instead calls a special election (ND Constitution Art. VI, Sec. 13). District judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. Under ND Supreme Court Administrative Rule 20, a presiding judge may appoint a magistrate with delegated authority to hold initial appearances and set bail under NDCC ch. 29-08.
District Court — Southeast Judicial District
- Daniel D. Narum (Presiding Judge)
- Bradley A. Cruff
- James D. Hovey
- Troy J. LeFevre
- Jay A. Schmitz
- James T. Shockman
- Nicholas D. Thornton
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-25
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
- Foster County has no jail. This is not a gap: its prisoners are held at Lake Region Correctional Facility, Stutsman County Correctional Center, and Barnes County Correctional Center, each confirmed directly from that host facility's own DOCR inspection report.
- Only the county commission page of fostercounty.com was successfully opened this session; the sheriff's office subpage could not be reached, so sheriff and any transparency-check content there could not be confirmed.
- Board of County Commissioners (NDCC 11-11-01). Meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month at 8:00 a.m. Commissioners: Pat Copenhaver (Chairman), Alan Scanson (Vice-Chairman), David Utke, Paul Roller, Becky Hagel.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Foster 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 2026-08-25 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered