Hennepin County Jail Reduces Inmate Population By 26 Percent

HENNEPIN COUNTY, MN — Efforts to release jail inmates who are not a danger to public safety cut the Hennepin County jail population by 26 percent in one week, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Monday.

As part of the effort to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, county prosecutors have been working to release individuals awaiting a court appearance and being held in jail who have no record of violence and are charged with "relatively minor" felonies.

The result is that the average daily population in the Hennepin County jail dropped from 815 last Monday to 602 on Friday morning, according to a news release. Freeman said his first priority, while making these decisions, is community safety and the concerns of crime victims.

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The Juvenile Prosecution Division is undertaking the same type of review. Efforts over the past decade have significantly cut the number of youths in the county’s Juvenile Detention Center and the juvenile division is working with juvenile justice partners to ensure that only those youth who pose a public safety risk are detained, according to officials.

The county attorney’s office also has been working with the Hennepin County Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the county workhouse for those who have been convicted of a crime and are spending up to a year there as part of their sentence.

The two departments are working to move as many as possible into electronic home monitoring.

"If this virus is so serious that we are emptying government buildings, sports arenas and restaurants in order to halt the spread, it only makes sense to release people who are unlikely to pose a threat to the public," Freeman stated.

"Taking these steps will protect the health of those working in the facilities, the health of the prisoners and ultimately, the health of all the residents in the county."

However, nothing has changed in regard to people committing crimes, Freemann notes. He says all police agencies are arresting people committing the crimes and the charging standards at the county attorney’s office are unchanged from what they were before the COVID-19 crisis.

Prosecutors will also be actively charging individuals who defraud others through COVID-19 scams.

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