The Tri-County Corrections Board met Monday at the Northwest Regional Correction Center (NWRCC).
NWRCC MONTHLY STATISTICS REPORT
The meeting began with Executive Director Andrew Larson presenting the board with the monthly statistics report from March. The report included the average daily population of 143 (119 males, 24 females), bringing the year-to-date average to 139. The most common cases for incarceration included- Parole violations (38 cases), failure to appear in court (33 cases), DWIs (29 cases), and assault (21 cases).
The Juvenile Center saw an average daily population of ten (4 secure detention/6 non-secure detention), bringing the year-to-date average to seven.
STAFFING ISSUES HINDERS JUVENILE CENTER ONCE AGAIN
After only a month of the Red River Valley Juvenile Center being fully staffed and re-opening the secure-detention portion of the facility, Larson informed the board that there had been five resignations over two weeks.
“Unfortunately, we will have to scale back our operations very similar to what we had to do at the end of 2023,” said Larson, “We’ve learned from past mistakes; there was a period of time where we only operated on our non-secure detention side, and we didn’t use the secure-detention at all. We’ve determined that’s problematic in terms of managing challenging behaviors. If we didn’t have a way to separate the kid, the behaviors really escalated.”
Larson informed the board that the secure detention side of the facility would close only for new admissions. This means the juvenile center will not accept new admissions off of the street and can only accept secure-detention behavior on a short-term basis due to the staffing shortage. “When both sides of the facility are open, we need an extra person,” said Larson, “We simply don’t have enough people not only to fill a shift, but our program director will fill some of the voids right now. But we can’t fill the floater shifts.”
The Juvenile Center is now hiring and searching for correction officers. The secure detention facility will re-open once the vacated positions are filled and the new employees are fully trained.
NWRCC AND JUVENILE CENTER RECEIVE BI-ANNUAL INSPECTION REPORTS
The Juvenile Center received its bi-annual inspection report last month from the Minnesota Department of Corrections (the NWRCC licensing authority). It complied with 315 out of 316 items that were inspected.
The jail received its inspection in December of 2023, and the report was reviewed by the board in January of 2024. The report showed six items that did not comply with inspection, and the NWRCC disputed four items to be reexamined by the Department of Corrections. “There were four of the six standards that I contested,” said Larson, “I felt that we did comply with the standard and felt that the Department of Corrections was incorrectly applying the particular standard. Of the four I challenged, two of them, the DOC, agreed that we complied. The other two were not overturned. However, we have already addressed the issues.”
The four inspection items Larson contested included- Medical training for custody staff, dangerous materials, custody staff training, and a number of volunteers. The two overturned items were the dangerous materials and the number of volunteers who ultimately met the code after review.
The Tri-County board will meet again on Monday, May 13, at the Northwest Regional Correction Center.
