The Detention Center
Grand Forks County Correctional Center
- Operated byGrand Forks County Sheriff's Office
- Address1701 North Washington Street, Grand Forks, ND 58203
- Rated capacity308
- Population on inspection date205
- GradeGrade 1
- Inspection dateJuly 9-10, 2025
- Standard 028 (Incident Reporting)"Correctional facilities shall submit the Significant Incident Reporting form...within 24 hours of a significant incident" — recorded non-compliant; a corrective action plan was submitted but the status remains non-compliant
- Standard 030 (Trained Staff and Female Staff)Required minimum trained officers on duty — recorded non-compliant; corrective action plan submitted, status remains non-compliant
- Standard 032 (Inmate Observation)Required regular rounds observing each inmate hourly — recorded non-compliant; corrective action plan submitted, status remains non-compliant
- Standard 038 (Inventory of Equipment)"Daily inventory, control, and use of keys, tools, culinary equipment" and other security items — recorded non-compliant; corrective action plan submitted, status remains non-compliant
- VolumeFacility processed 2,790 males and 1,167 females in 2024, with an average 17-day stay
Source: Grand Forks County Correctional Center — DOCR Inspection Report (Jul 9-10, 2025) · checked 2026-08-25
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗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
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗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
- Beds308 rated capacity (DOCR inspection, Jul 9-10, 2025); population on inspection day 205
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Andrew Schneider
- Runs the jailYes — Grand Forks County Correctional Center
- ElectedYes — NDCC 11-10-02 requires each county to have an elected sheriff, four-year term
- Confirmed twiceNamed as sheriff both in the county's own staff directory and in the DOCR inspection report
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Grand Forks County, ND — Staff Directory · 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 — Northeast Central Judicial District
- Don Hager (Presiding Judge)
- Andrew Eyre
- Jay Knudson
- Jason McCarthy
- Theodore Sandberg
- Kristi Pettit Venhuizen
- 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 →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The county's own site (gfcounty.nd.gov/government/gfso) names the facility and gives its address, so 'named' is recorded yes.
- The county sheriff's office links to an inmate roster hosted at gfexternal1.nd.gov — a separate nd.gov domain, not the county's own gfcounty.nd.gov or gfcountysheriff.org domain, so 'roster' is recorded no under this project's rule that only the county's own domain counts.
- gfcounty.nd.gov/government/adult-corrections/prea, opened and read this session, lists PREA Facility Audit Reports for 2016, 2019, 2022 and 2025 plus a 2024 PREA Statistical Report, so 'prea' is recorded yes.
- gfcounty.nd.gov/government/bail-options, opened and read this session, explains posting bail by cash kiosk, credit card, or bail bond, so 'bond_info' is recorded yes.
- gfcounty.nd.gov/government/adult-corrections/reliance names the inmate phone provider (HomeWAV) but publishes no rate figures, so 'fees' is recorded no. gfcountysheriff.org/corrections was also opened and named no rated capacity, contract, or commissary information.
- DOCR's own inspection page publishes the capacity, population, grade, and standards, but per this project's rule the DOCR page is the state publishing, not the county, so it does not make 'capacity' or 'inspections' a yes.
- Report a failed standard in the inspection's own words: this record uses the DOCR report's own language for Standards 028, 030, 032 and 038 and does not characterize them as violations.
- Board of County Commissioners. Commissioners: Terry Bjerke, Kimberly Hagen, Anthony Hodny, Bob Rost, Mark Rustad. Meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month at 4:00 p.m. at the Grand Forks County Office Building. Agendas and minutes are posted by year on the county's own site.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Grand Forks 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