The following thoughts are my opinions and my opinions alone. They do not represent all of Beltrami County; instead, they are framed from my real-world experience as the elected County Attorney for Beltrami County.
In that role, I am tasked with prosecuting the many serious crimes that we face here in our community. I laud the aspirations of those who would like to see a smaller jail, one with more programming and better resources for the inmates.
Personally, I would love to see a day when we have no need for a jail. Unfortunately,
and we need one large enough to address the very real and very serious crimes that occur in our community.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension annually publishes a Uniform Crime Report; Beltrami County is consistently in the top five for the highest crime rate in the state. That is nothing to be proud of. I have worked tirelessly to reduce it and will continue to do so, but the sad reality is we are a poor county.
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The way the state of Minnesota has decided to address crime is through local enforcement of laws, accompanied by statewide administration of punishment (the judiciary and Department of Corrections, and most importantly the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission are all state-run entities; whereas, law enforcement and prosecution are operated and funded locally). Because of this, poorer counties tend to see higher crime statistics.
I’m sure many in our community have opinions and ideas about the make-up and structure of the criminal justice system in Minnesota — I know I do. I would encourage a dialog with your local legislators. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the very real problem at hand — an aging, inadequate and inefficient jail — for want of a larger statewide solution that may never come.
We’re currently stuck with the system the state has given us. In the meantime, we have had over 2,000 victims of crime in the past five years alone here in Beltrami County. Sometimes bad people do bad things; a just society needs to be able to hold those who do bad things accountable.
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