The Meeker County Inmate Population
The official Meeker County inmate population is reported through several public records, not one single dashboard. The local custody list is the Meeker County Jail roster, a daily PDF published by the Sheriff's Office for people held in the county jail at the time the roster is printed. The broader population picture comes from the Meeker County Sheriff's annual activity reports and Minnesota Department of Corrections inspection and performance reports. Those sources show the county jail as the only confirmed detention facility in Meeker County, with state prison, federal, and immigration custody searched through separate locators when a person leaves local jail control.
Meeker County Jail holds adults awaiting court, people serving misdemeanor or gross-misdemeanor sentences, out-of-county boarders, and some Minnesota DOC work-release participants. The daily roster inspected for research also showed entries held for the Meeker County Sheriff's Office, led by Sheriff Brian Cruze, and entries held for Department of Corrections Work Release. That detail matters because a person can appear on the county roster while connected to DOC programming, even though sentenced state prisoners are normally searched through the Minnesota DOC public viewer.
Meeker County Inmate Population Statistics
The most useful Meeker County inmate population figures come from the 2024 DOC inspection, the FY25 DOC performance report, and the 2025 Sheriff's Office activity report. The DOC inspection lists the jail as a Minnesota Class III local adult detention facility with approved secure coed beds and an operating-capacity calculation. The Sheriff's report gives the local annual booking count, average daily population, average length of stay, boarding revenue, and booking-sex totals. A current roster count is only a snapshot, so it should not be treated as the yearly average.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily population | 26 in sheriff report; 27.00 in DOC per-diem table | 2025 Sheriff's activity report; FY25 MNDOC Performance Report |
| Approved secure capacity | 69 secure coed beds | 2024 Minnesota DOC inspection |
| Operational capacity | 62.10 beds at 90 percent | 2024 Minnesota DOC inspection |
| Annual bookings | 519 total booked | 2025 Sheriff's activity report |
| Average stay | 15 days | 2025 Sheriff's activity report |
| Current roster snapshot | 15 visible entries in extracted text | Roster PDF printed June 18, 2026 |
Meeker County Inmate Population Trends
The Meeker County inmate population has been stable by average daily count but lower by annual bookings in the most recent reports. Average daily population stayed in the mid-20s for 2022 through 2025, with the lowest reported figure in that run at 24 in 2023. Bookings fell from 629 in 2023 to 595 in 2024 and 519 in 2025. The 2025 Sheriff's report also notes that the jail reached full staffing after prior shortages, and that the Justice Center and Law Enforcement Center remodel created more jail-program, jail-administration, records, court-security, and inmate-transport space.
| Year | ADP / Bookings | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | ADP 26; bookings 519 | Average stay 15 days; boarding revenue $224,926.14. |
| 2024 | ADP 26; bookings 595 | Average stay 15 days; boarding rate $75 per day in the annual report. |
| 2023 | ADP 24; bookings 629 | Average stay 11 days; boarding revenue $146,962.13. |
| 2022 | ADP 26; bookings 607 | Average stay 15 days; boarding rate $60 per day in the annual report. |
| 2021 | Bookings 699 | ADP was not captured in the research excerpt. |
| 2020 | Bookings 551 | Included in the Sheriff's annual booking chart sequence. |
Who Makes Up the Meeker County Inmate Population
Meeker County publishes more detail on booking sex and juvenile booking counts than on aggregate race, age-band, felony, or pretrial breakdowns. The 2025 Sheriff's report lists 406 male bookings, 109 female bookings, and 4 juvenile bookings, or about 78 percent male, 21 percent female, and 1 percent juvenile. The daily roster has age, sex, and race fields for each listed person, but that is a person-by-person roster field, not an official demographic table for the full annual Meeker County inmate population.
- Local jail custody: Meeker County Jail holds adults awaiting court and people serving misdemeanor or gross-misdemeanor sentences.
- Boarded inmates: Sheriff's reports state that the jail boards people from other counties and MNDOC.
- Work release: The roster can show Department of Corrections Work Release entries held locally.
- Juvenile holds: The DOC inspection notes limited rural-exception juvenile hold approval and five juveniles held or processed in the audited federal fiscal year.
Meeker County Jail Capacity and Overcrowding
Meeker County Jail was not operating near approved capacity in the recent official figures reviewed. A 2025 average daily population of 26 is about 38 percent of the 69-bed approved capacity and about 42 percent of the 62.10-bed operational capacity. The 2024 DOC inspection continued the jail's authority to operate and kept it on biennial inspection status. Official research did not confirm an overcrowding lawsuit, DOJ consent decree, jail closure, or new jail-construction plan for Meeker County.
The 2025 remodel is still important to the Meeker County inmate population because it changed the way the jail, courtrooms, records area, and public entrance work together. The Sheriff's report says the remodel created dedicated jail-program and jail-administration space, new holding cells off courtrooms, a secure public checkpoint, and a dedicated inmate elevator. Those details help explain why jail population, court appearances, and records access are physically tied to the Justice Center campus in Litchfield.
Laws Governing the Meeker County Inmate Population
Minnesota law separates public access to jail data from private, sealed, medical, juvenile, and active-investigation records. For Meeker County inmate population records, the starting point is public government data unless another law classifies the data otherwise. Law-enforcement data rules cover arrest data and booking photos. DOC licensing law and Minnesota jail rules govern the local adult detention facility itself, including admissions, releases, records, classification, welfare, discipline, and grievance topics.
Key Statutes:
Minn. Stat. 13.03 makes public government data open for inspection unless state or federal law says otherwise.
Minn. Stat. 13.82 governs law-enforcement data, including arrest data and booking-photo access.
Minn. Stat. 241.021 gives the Minnesota DOC inspection and licensing authority over correctional facilities.
Minn. R. ch. 2911 sets Minnesota local adult detention facility standards for jails such as Meeker County Jail.
Meeker County and the State Prison Population
No state prison was confirmed inside Meeker County, but the state prison system still affects Meeker County inmate lookup. Adults committed to the Commissioner of Corrections are searched through the MNDOC public viewer, which covers people in prison and people released from prison but still under DOC jurisdiction. The DOC warns that newly sentenced people may take several business days to appear. Meeker County Jail also boards MNDOC-linked people and runs a work-release program for approved nonviolent offenders near the end of a prison sentence, so the county and state systems can overlap in limited local ways.
| Custody Type | Where to Search | What It Covers |
|---|---|---|
| County jail | Meeker County Jail Roster PDF | Current local custody listed when the PDF is printed. |
| State prison or supervision | MNDOC public viewer | Adults under Minnesota DOC jurisdiction. |
| Federal sentenced custody | Federal BOP inmate locator | Federal inmates in BOP custody. |
| Immigration detention | ICE Online Detainee Locator | ICE detainees searched by A-number or biographical data. |
How to Search the Meeker County Inmate Population
The local search starts with the official Meeker County Jail Roster PDF. It is free and does not require an account, but it is not an interactive database. There are no web search boxes, filters, reset buttons, or profile pages in the inspected version. Users open or download the PDF and use the browser or PDF find tool for a name, city, statute number, or holding agency.
- Open the Sheriff's jail page or the direct jail roster PDF.
- Check the printed date at the top so the roster is not mistaken for a live feed.
- Use Ctrl+F or Command+F for a last name, first name, city, statute number, or holding agency.
- Read across the row because long names, addresses, and charges may wrap onto more than one line.
- If the person is absent, call the jail, contact Sheriff's Records, or search MNDOC, BOP, ICE, or VINELink based on custody type.
Current Meeker County Inmate Lookup
The Meeker County inmate lookup process is simple, but the PDF format creates limits. The roster title inspected during research was Internet Daily Jail Roster, printed June 18, 2026. It showed current entries visible in the PDF at that time. A person missing from the roster may have been released, transferred, not yet added, held under a different system, or in custody outside Meeker County.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search fields | None | n/a | The official county roster is a PDF, not a searchable web form. |
| Button labels | None | n/a | No Search, Reset, Clear, or Advanced Search button appears on the PDF. |
| Roster title/date | Printed text | n/a | Internet Daily Jail Roster; inspected PDF printed June 18, 2026. |
| Roster columns | PDF table | n/a | Mugshot; Name and Address; Age; Sex; Race; Arrest Date/Time; Held For; Charges. |
The official Meeker County Jail page shows the jail contact block and jail-information links.
That jail page is the local entry point before the reader opens the daily roster PDF or checks visitation, mail, work-release, and release-time pages.
Past Meeker County Inmate Records
The Meeker County Jail roster is a current-custody PDF, not a long-term archive of past bookings. The research did not find a public historical booking database or a separate released-inmate search. For older booking data, records requests should go to Sheriff's Records and, when needed, through Meeker County's MGDPA data-practices process. Minnesota law gives the public the right to inspect public data at reasonable times and places, but active-investigation data, juvenile data, sealed records, medical details, and other nonpublic classifications can limit release.
VINELink is also useful for custody notifications, but it is not a full booking-record archive. The VINELink Minnesota portal supports custody-status alerts where participating agencies report data. A released person may no longer appear on the county roster, while a sentenced person may appear later in the MNDOC public viewer.
What a Meeker County Inmate Record Shows
The Meeker County roster record is a flat PDF row. It helps identify a person and the local custody context, but it is not a complete booking profile. The inspected version did not show bond, booking number, housing unit, court date, release date, or warrant number. Court events should be checked through Minnesota Court Records Online and the Meeker County District Court calendar.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Mugshot | A Mugshot column exists, but visual display should be confirmed in the current PDF. |
| Name and Address | Full name, city, street address or None, and state where published. |
| Age, Sex, Race | Basic identifying fields in the roster row. |
| Arrest Date/Time | The date and time tied to the arrest or booking event. |
| Held For | The holding agency or status, including the Sheriff's Office or DOC Work Release. |
| Charges | Minnesota statute number and plain charge wording, with multiple charges wrapping below one person. |
Meeker County Detention Facilities
Official research confirmed one detention facility in Meeker County that needs its own page. City police agencies and local arresting agencies are treated as arrest or referral agencies that use the county jail and court system, not as separate public inmate-population facilities. No separate city jail, regional jail, state prison, BOP prison, ICE facility, or federal detention center in Meeker County was confirmed from the official sources reviewed.
- Meeker County Jail is the local adult detention facility operated by the Meeker County Sheriff's Office for pretrial custody, misdemeanor and gross-misdemeanor sentences, out-of-county boarders, and some DOC work-release participants.
Meeker County Jail Programs and Reentry
The Meeker County inmate population is not only a count of beds and bookings. The 2025 Sheriff's report describes a social-worker partnership with Meeker County Social Services for inmates with mental-health needs, release planning, and resource referrals. Jail programming includes chemical-use assessments, AA, NA, Adult and Teen Challenge, faith-based groups, library access, recreation, Project Harmony for women with children, and social-services coordination. The report says about 80 volunteers provide roughly 62 hours per week, equal to about 1.5 full-time staff.
- ADP
- Average daily population, the usual jail count across a reporting period.
- Operational capacity
- The DOC operating-capacity percentage applied to approved jail beds.
- Work release
- A court or DOC-authorized custody status that allows approved work while still under jail rules.
- Detainer or hold
- A legal reason another agency may keep a person in custody even if local bond is addressed.
Meeker County Inmate Population FAQ
How large is the Meeker County inmate population? The 2025 Sheriff's activity report lists an average daily population of 26, while the FY25 DOC performance table lists 27.00. The current roster is only a daily snapshot.
Does Meeker County have a searchable jail database? No. The official local roster is a PDF. Search it with the PDF find function, then call the jail or records unit if the person is not listed.
Where are sentenced state prisoners searched? Adults committed to the Minnesota Commissioner of Corrections are searched in the MNDOC public viewer, not the county jail roster.
Does Meeker County have an inmate roster app? No dedicated Meeker sheriff roster app was confirmed. The P3 Tips app is for Crime Stoppers tips, not inmate lookup.
Can old bookings be searched online? No public Meeker historical booking database was confirmed. Use Sheriff's Records and the county data-practices process for older public booking data.
Public Record Search
Sponsored Results