Tri-County Community Corrections Executive Director Andrew Larson reported to the Regional Corrections Board this week on the 2019 populations at the Red River Valley Juvenile Center and Northwest Regional Corrections Center. The juvenile center had its highest average daily population at 10.6 juveniles, while the Northwest Regional Corrections Center held steady with its five-year average with 182 inmates per day.
Larson said that almost 50 percent of the residents in the juvenile center come from non-member counties, meaning from outside of Polk, Red Lake, and Norman Counties. “The juvenile center actually had the highest average daily population in all the years we’ve been open,” said Larson. “We averaged right around 10.6 residents a day and almost 50 percent of those were from non-member counties. So, our efforts to get out and spread the word about our program and the services we offer have been beneficial. Really happy with the work that Kyle Allen, Juvenile Center Program Director, and Paul Bissonette, our Deputy Director, have done to get placements from non-member counties.”
The Corrections Center meanwhile maintained its five-year average population despite what Larson calls a significant jump in the female inmate population. “At the Northwest Regional Corrections Center, we were just below our year-to-date average at just under 180 for the month of December,” said Larson. “Our average daily population for the year was 182. We’re licensed for 200, so we’re at about 91 percent capacity. That’s very consistent with where we have been over the course of the last four years. Our population has ranged from 181 to 185 for our average daily population. The one population group we’ve seen a significant increase in population is our female population. This more we were at 50 females and while not a record it is close to a record. The female population is definitely the group we’re seeing the biggest increase from and I would speculate that is driven in large part by substance use disorders.”
Larson added that the average number of females incarcerated per day has doubled over the last five years. “In the course of five years our average daily female population has increased almost two-fold,” said Larson. “Our average daily female population four years ago was in that low-20s and now the last two years we’ve been in the mid-40s, so that’s a significant increase in a short amount of time. On face value, many people probably think that’s not a real challenge but from a management perspective it is a challenge that requires them to constantly be moving bodies within the jail to make the best use of our spaces.”
Inmates at the corrections center are eligible for a number of programs. Among those are programs are sentence to serve (STS) and chore service, participation in which can reduce the number of days an inmate is incarcerated. Larson said there nearly 8 inmates fewer each day due to early releases earned through the programs. “Both the chore service and sentence to serve (STS) programs are popular programs we’ve had for as long as I’ve been with the agency dating back to 2001,” said Larson. “For 2019, they saved us on average about 7.6 bed days per day through participation. We have inmate work crews that go out in the community to do work for non-profit or government organizations. Or the other part of what they do is they’ll go out and do work for some of our elderly population like shoveling sidewalks or raking leaves. We perform outside chore services for them to allow them to stay in their homes. So, if we didn’t have the program, didn’t have any way for inmates to reduce their jail sentence it is very conceivable that our average daily population would’ve been 190 instead of 182 because of that 7.6 per day savings through STS and chore service participation.”
