Stearns County debates location of new jail, justice center

As Capt. Mark Maslonkowski walks through the Stearns County jail in downtown St. Cloud, he lists examples of why the nearly 40-year-old building needs replacing.

A shortage of adequate space. A bunker-like design that allows in little natural light. An elevator that creates a traffic bottleneck when moving inmates or supplies. Outdated equipment that’s difficult or impossible to repair.

Maslonkowski motions through a glass window to a metal console with rows of buttons, installed when the jail was built in 1986. It controls door locks and has an intercom that inmates can use to report a problem — if a corrections officer is at the desk to hear it.

At the moment, there’s not. The intercom keeps buzzing, unanswered.

“That’s one of our big safety and security concerns here is if an inmate hits an intercom in the cell, it’ll only ever ring here,” he said.

Ideally, if no one answered, the intercom would ring through to a central control post. It’s one of the changes Maslonkowski hopes to see in when the county builds a new jail — along with more space and a better design.

In the coming few months, Stearns County officials face some major decisions, including how and where to replace its outdated jail and sheriff’s office, and add more court space.

More than a decade ago, a study found Stearns County needed a larger jail. County officials decided to remodel the existing facility in 2015.

“It’s seen its age, obviously,” Sheriff Steve Soyka said. “We’ve pretty much outgrown it from a staff standpoint, but also just looking into the future.”

The current jail has an operational capacity of about 135 people. A 2022 study projected the county’s needs at 270 beds by 2040.

Other Minnesota counties are facing similar costly choices, as their jails reach the end of their life expectancies and the expectations of care change.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections has told about 20 other Minnesota counties that their jails are beyond their 30-year life expectancy and falling short of standards.

But repairing or replacing those jails comes with a hefty price tag. A new Stearns County jail and justice center could cost as much as $300 million. It would be the largest construction project the county has ever done.

“These are not popular projects,” said Matt Hilgart, a lobbyist with the Association of Minnesota Counties. “No one runs for county board saying, ‘I’m running because I want to fund a new jail.’”

However, there is a need to replace dated jails that don’t meet current standards, Hilgart said. 

“Certainly, our ideas of what a public safety system and justice system have changed as society, and especially in the last five years,” he said.

Payment questions

Jails and court facilities are some of the largest and costliest building projects counties take on. Some, including Stearns, are asking voters to approve a local sales tax to help pay for jail projects.

Spreading the cost beyond just county property taxpayers makes sense, said Stearns County Administrator Mike Williams.

“If you look at the people that are processed through our system — whether they’re in the jail or going through the courts or being arrested — about 50 percent of those people do not have a Stearns County address,” he said.

Carlton County is building a new, $75 million justice center that should be completed by mid summer. Voters approved a local option sales tax to help pay for the project.

“We knew we had to do something regardless with respect to updating our facility. We had no choice,” said County Coordinator Dennis Genereau. “We probably would have had to pass that on to a local taxpayer levy.”

Genereau said the old jail’s linear design made it difficult to provide required well-being checks of inmates every 30 minutes, and to adequately separate inmates.

The new space will allow for more programming for inmates, including chemical dependency treatment, life skills and mental health, he said.

Location, location, location

The sticky question facing Stearns officials is where to build a new facility. 

Keeping it downtown would take longer, and require buying additional property downtown, including relocating the post office, Williams said. It would also limit the potential for future expansion.

“There’s a lot of good reasons to stay here, because we already have a lot of folks in the area,” he said. “But it’s a really constrained site.”

Other options are building a new jail and court complex outside of downtown, or splitting the two. County Attorney Janelle Kendall said she strongly believes the jail and courts should be kept together.

“It’s going to be a little over a million dollars a year to haul people back and forth between a remote jail out somewhere on the edge of St. Cloud and downtown,” Kendall said. “It really slows down the entire justice system.”

Relocating the justice buildings would have an economic impact on downtown St. Cloud, which city leaders hope to revitalize. The adjacent historic courthouse, known for its gold dome, is used mainly for civil hearings. 

Stearns County officials will decide in the coming months where to build the new facility, and whether to put the funding question to voters in November.

Design changes

Wherever it’s built, a new jail will look a lot different than the old one. Standards for jails have changed, along with who's behind bars.

Maslonkowski said Stearns County’s jail has more people charged with serious and violent crimes, including assault, domestic violence and even murder. Those charged with low-level offenses are now kept at home with monitoring technology rather than in jail, he said.

Inmates charged with complex crimes often need to be separated, requiring more space. And their cases take longer to resolve through the courts, meaning they stay in jail longer.

A new jail would provide better space for programs designed to help inmates succeed after they’re released, officials said. Many newer jails are designed to be more humane, with more natural light and calming colors to help improve inmates’ mental health.

In past years, some counties have been criticized for building oversized jails, rather than trying to reduce the number of people incarcerated. 

Stearns officials say they’ve taken steps to keep people out of jail, including specialty courts for drug and domestic violence offenders and providing educational classes and social workers in the jail to reduce recidivism. 

“Sometimes I think there’s a notion out there that we’re just building it so we can put more people in jail,” Williams said. “That’s totally not what we are all about.”