The Northwest Regional Corrections Board meeting was held Monday, July 10. The meeting recap is below.
ALL DEPARTMENT MONTHLY REVIEW
The meeting included every department’s monthly statistical review for June. The average daily inmate population was 184 inmates per day, 155 males and 29 females. The average daily population from January 2023 to June 2023 was 173 inmates. Northwest Regional Corrections Executive Director Andrew Larson gave his thoughts on the numbers, “unfortunately for us, we are seeing these numbers return to where they were pre-covid, and how we saw a huge reduction in our population for a couple of years.”
The most common reasons for arrests in June were assault/domestic assault, controlled substance crimes, D.U.I., failure to appear in court, and parole/probation violations. The per diem revenue for June was in the amount of $98,446. Larson explained the per diem numbers, “we typically try to shoot for the $100,000 mark to stay on budget,” said Larson, “we’re a little shy of that mark because we had to refuse some other county inmates.”
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS JUNE RECAP
The D.O.C. averaged 7.5 inmates per day in June, and most D.O.C. inmates housed in Polk County are transferred here for work release. “These inmates are transitioning back into the community, and they’re working back to getting a job; they’re getting stabilized, so they are ready when the time comes for their release date.”
JUVENILE CENTER JUNE RECAP AND UPDATES
The Juvenile Center is taking trauma focus more seriously for their inmate’s health. Many of the inmates the Juvenile Center receive have a long history of trauma; Larson gives his thoughts on the process, “we’ve always been cognizant of the prevalence of trauma these kids have endured,” said Larson, “just given their backgrounds, I think we’re being more purposeful now then we have been in the past, it goes without saying the kids that we get they have a significant trauma history. Whether it’s being the subject of physical or sexual abuse, observing abuse, and being taken out of the home can be traumatic.”
Juvenile Center Staff are set to receive new training regarding trauma; the staff will learn about the effects of trauma and how to manage the behavior of adolescence. “Our case worker recently went down to St. Paul for trauma training,” said Larson, “Stephanie Covington, who is a world-renowned expert and does a lot of programming, gave our case worker a lot of training on trauma.” The staff will be exposed to programming to help kids incarcerated with their past traumas.
The Minnesota Legislature has ordered all Juvenile Facilities to implement a Risk Assessment Instrument (R.A.I.) to determine whether an adolescent will be arrested or brought into custody in a secure detention facility. This instrument or tool determines if secure detention for a child is appropriate or if other alternatives can be taken. “This is going to be a significant change for us; there are some jurisdictions in the state that are doing this already,” said Larson, “this is not something we have done locally in part because we don’t have many alternative placement options available, but also in ways secure detention has been used.” R.A.I. is a numerical scoring system created by the Juvenile Center staff to measure each adolescent’s behavior and current state. This system will be implemented at the Juvenile Center on August 15, 2023. There were 13 total residents in the Juvenile Center in June. There are seven; four are local, and three are from non-member counties.
The Juvenile Center is actively hiring. The criteria to be employed is at least 21 years of age or actively enrolled in criminal justice or human services-related field, high school diploma or equivalent. If interested, positions for the Juvenile Center are posted on INDEED.
PROBATION FEES UPDATES
The Minnesota Legislature has changed the language of what may waive fees into must waive fees. All Supervision fees are set to be waived by 2027. With supervision fees being waived, the Northwest Regional Correction facility will lose 90% of their fee revenue which ranges from $105,000 to $109,000 per year. “Within the large public safety omnibus bill, while it did come with significant increases with C.C.A. funding, C.C.A. being a subsidy we get from the state to fund our probation program,” said Larson, “it came with big funding increases, but we still have to eliminate our supervision fees.” The board decided not to act up to this point, and they will re-evaluate in 2025 when a formal plan needs to be implemented.
