Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt is expressing concern about the county’s overcrowded jail.
It’s currently so crowded that they are moving 180 inmates to other county jails in the state.
“We’re the largest jail in the state, we’re the busiest jail in the state,” says Witt. “You know, think about it this way, we are the hub for the 37 municipalities in this county for people that are arrested.”
Witt says the inmate transfers are necessary to keep inmates and jail staff safe which is another challenge.
“We operate out of two different buildings that is also taxing on staffing,” Witt adds.
The jail is located in Minneapolis City Hall and the Public Safety Building at this time, but Witt said that if the current inmate trend continues, she would seek to build a new jail outside Minneapolis. That’s for a number of reasons including the fact that employees working downtown have to pay for parking.
“It’s not just the the population, but we also have some significant jail projects that are going on that also decreases the number of available beds that we have here,” says the sheriff. “And those projects, that means they just have to be done. We cannot continue to push it off because we always have the goal of making sure we have the safest and security facility for all of our incarcerated population.”