The Otter Tail County Inmate Population
The Otter Tail County inmate population is centered on the Otter Tail County Jail in Fergus Falls. The county jail page describes the facility as the place where the Sheriff's Office books, houses, and releases people suspected of crimes or convicted of crimes. It also states that the jail may hold prisoners for other counties, the Minnesota Department of Corrections, immigration authorities, and the U.S. Marshals. That mix matters. A roster name may be tied to a new local arrest, a local sentence, a boarder status, or a hold from another agency.
The population count changes when arrests are booked, when judges set bond or release terms, when sentenced inmates move to state prison, and when outside agencies pick up prisoners. The county roster is the current local custody source. Court records show the case path after arrest. The Minnesota Department of Corrections public locator covers adults committed to state corrections custody. Federal and immigration cases can require the county jail phone line plus the federal locator that matches the custody type.
Otter Tail County Inmate Population Statistics
Official sources give a detailed local picture for the Otter Tail County inmate population. The county jail page and the 2024 Minnesota DOC inspection both list 111 approved secure coed beds. The same inspection lists an operational capacity of 99.90 at 90 percent capacity. The Sheriff's Office 2024 year-end report lists 1,094 total bookings, 33.00 average daily population, 9.00 average length of stay, and 11,841 inmate days. A timestamped custody PDF inspected on June 18, 2026 at 10:00 showed about 35 current entries, but the county states that the list updates every two hours.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily population | 33.00 | 2024 Sheriff's Office year-end report |
| Approved secure coed capacity | 111 beds | County jail page; MNDOC 2024 inspection |
| Operational capacity | 99.90 at 90 percent | MNDOC 2024 inspection |
| Total adult and juvenile bookings | 1,094 | 2024 Sheriff's Office year-end report |
| Current roster snapshot | About 35 entries | Official custody PDF inspected June 18, 2026 at 10:00 |
| County population | 61,041 estimate | U.S. Census QuickFacts, July 1, 2025 |
Otter Tail County Inmate Population Trends
The Otter Tail County inmate population has fallen sharply from the 2019 baseline in the Sheriff's Office year-end report. Average daily population was 82.5 in 2019 and 33.00 in 2024. Total bookings also declined, from 1,913 in 2019 to 1,094 in 2024. The report notes that Work Release and Sentence to Serve were suspended from March 17, 2020 to July 19, 2021, which helps explain some of the disruption in the trend line. The 2024 numbers were the lowest in the research table for both bookings and average daily population.
| Year | Total Bookings | ADP | Average Stay | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,913 | 82.5 | 13.22 days | Pre-COVID baseline |
| 2020 | 1,201 | 52.01 | 14.00 days | COVID-era program suspension began |
| 2021 | 1,290 | 43.62 | 10.77 days | Work Release and STS resumed in July |
| 2022 | 1,320 | 44.73 | 10.91 days | Moderate rebound |
| 2023 | 1,244 | 43.00 | 10.06 days | Still below the 2019 level |
| 2024 | 1,094 | 33.00 | 9.00 days | Lowest ADP in the table |
Board-out figures add more context. The 2024 report lists 70 inmates boarded out, 1,068 inmate days boarded out, and a total board-out cost of $71,687.42. Those figures show that a low average population does not mean the facility had no operational pressure. Population, capacity, court timing, staff resources, and bed classification can all affect whether a person stays in Fergus Falls or is held elsewhere for part of a case.
Who Makes Up Otter Tail County Inmates
Published Otter Tail County inmate population data does not include a full annual race, ethnicity, age-band, or pretrial-by-sentence table in the sources reviewed. The public roster shows sex and age for each person, and it lists charge level and status at the charge line. The Sheriff's Office report separates adult bookings from juvenile bookings and gives a small work-release sex count. That is useful, but it is not the same as a full demographic report.
- Adult bookings: The 2024 report lists 1,089 adult bookings.
- Juvenile bookings: The same report lists 5 juvenile bookings.
- Work release: The 2024 work-release count was 11 male participants and 1 female participant.
- Other agency prisoners: The jail page says the facility can hold other county, MNDOC, immigration, and U.S. Marshals prisoners.
Roster users should avoid reading too much into one snapshot. A current PDF shows only people listed at that moment. It does not show every person booked during the year, every person released that week, or every state-prison sentence that began from an Otter Tail County case.
Otter Tail County Jail Capacity
The Minnesota DOC 2024 inspection identifies the Otter Tail County Jail as a secure coed local adult jail with 111 approved beds. The inspection lists 122 of 127 applicable mandatory rules in compliance and an overall mandatory-rule compliance rate of 97.64 percent. It also lists essential-rule compliance at 99.00 percent. The report found substantial compliance overall, while documenting corrective items tied to visitation scheduling, daily security-inspection records, medication disposal accounting, monthly security-equipment inventory, and medical-screening concerns.
Those inspection findings should be read with care. They do not erase the official capacity figure, and they do not support a claim that every process was perfect. They show the state inspection record that governed the jail at the time. For inmate population purposes, the key point is that the jail's approved bed count, operational capacity, and roster count come from different official records. A daily roster is a custody snapshot. A DOC inspection is a licensing and compliance record.
Laws for Otter Tail Jail Records
Minnesota law shapes what the public can see about the Otter Tail County inmate population. The county's custody-list page cites law-enforcement, corrections-data, and jail-register statutes. These laws explain why some custody facts are public while juvenile, investigative, medical, or other classified data may be withheld. Court case records then follow court-access rules, which is why a roster charge should be checked against Minnesota Court Records Online when the case moves into court.
Key Statutes:
Minn. Stat. 13.82 governs law-enforcement data, including public and nonpublic treatment of arrest, warrant, response, and investigative records.
Minn. Stat. 13.85 defines corrections and detention data for people held in jails, lockups, prisons, and correctional facilities.
Minn. Stat. 641.05 requires a sheriff to keep a jail register for persons committed under the sheriff's charge.
Minn. Rule Chapter 2911 sets minimum standards for Minnesota local adult detention facilities.
Otter Tail County and State Prison
No Minnesota state prison was found physically in Otter Tail County in the official sources reviewed. Even so, the state prison path is part of the Otter Tail County inmate population story because a person sentenced out of Otter Tail County can leave the county jail and enter MNDOC custody. The state locator covers adults committed to the Commissioner of Corrections and still under DOC jurisdiction, including prison and supervised release. Newly sentenced people may take several business days to appear.
| System | Use It For | Public Search Path |
|---|---|---|
| Otter Tail County Jail | Current local custody, new bookings, short local sentences, boarders | Jail In Custody List |
| Minnesota DOC | Sentenced state prisoners and supervised release under DOC jurisdiction | MNDOC Locator |
| Federal BOP | Federal inmates incarcerated from 1982 to the present | BOP Inmate Locator |
| ICE | Current ICE custody or CBP custody over 48 hours | ICE Online Detainee Locator |
Search Otter Tail County Inmates
The official Otter Tail County inmate search starts with the county's Jail In Custody List page. The roster is not a search form. It is a PDF linked from the county page and updated every two hours. Open the file, check the timestamp, and use the browser or PDF find tool for a last name, booking number, MNI number, statute, or charge phrase. The roster is the best first step for people held in the county jail now.
The official custody-list gateway is the source page for the roster. It also gives the county's public-data warning and cites the Minnesota statutes that govern jail information.
The screenshot is useful because it shows that the county routes users through a roster gateway before the PDF opens, rather than through a name-search database.
- Open the county Jail In Custody List page and use the link to view the current PDF.
- Check the report timestamp at the top before relying on the entry.
- Use Ctrl+F or the PDF find command for the person's last name, MNI number, booking number, or charge term.
- Read across the row for intake date, charge text, bond information, photo field, name, and projected release if shown.
- If the person is missing, call the jail, check MCRO, search MNDOC for a state transfer, and use federal or ICE locators if those custody paths fit.
Otter Tail County Roster Fields
The roster is row-based, so there is no public web form with first-name and last-name fields. Each PDF row carries the public fields that were visible in the inspected report. The MNI number and booking number are especially useful when calling the jail or filing a data request because they reduce the chance of mixing people with similar names.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search form | N/A | N/A | No public web search form found; roster is a PDF. |
| MNI # | PDF column | N/A | Numeric master-name identifier, with leading zeroes in examples. |
| Sex | PDF column | N/A | M or F observed. |
| Age | PDF column | N/A | Numeric age. |
| Booking # | PDF column | N/A | Booking-event number, with leading zeroes in examples. |
| Intake_Date | PDF column | N/A | MM/DD/YYYY format. |
| Charges | PDF text | N/A | May show level, status, statute, and plain-language charge text. |
| Bond_Amount | PDF column/text | N/A | May show with-conditions or without-conditions amounts. |
Past Otter Tail County Inmate Records
A person who is no longer on the current jail PDF may still have public records in other systems. The roster is aimed at current custody. Older booking details may require the Sheriff's Office Data Request Form, with the person's name, approximate booking date, case number or booking number, and the exact record requested. The form lets requesters choose paper pickup, paper mail, thumb drive with fee, email copies, or another delivery method.
Court status should be checked through Minnesota Court Records Online. MCRO is separate from the jail roster and may show case details, Registers of Actions, hearings, monetary judgment data, and public documents under court rules. That separation is important. A jail record shows custody and booking information. A court record shows what was filed, what hearings occurred, and how the case moved after arrest.
What Otter Tail Inmate Records Show
The official custody PDF inspected for Otter Tail County listed current people in rows rather than clickable profile pages. Charge entries may show a felony, gross misdemeanor, or misdemeanor level; an active or sentenced status; a statute number; and a plain-language description. Bond entries can vary by file. Some fields may be blank when they do not apply or when the public report does not show the detail.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| MNI # | County master identifier for the person. |
| Name | Last, first, middle format. |
| Sex / Age | Basic public demographic fields in the roster row. |
| Booking # | Booking-event identifier for the custody event. |
| Intake_Date | Date the person was booked into the jail. |
| Charges | Charge level, status, statute, and description. |
| Photo | Column exists, but extracted text did not confirm public image links. |
| Projected Release Date | Shown when available, especially for sentenced entries. |
Otter Tail State and Federal Search
Some people connected to an Otter Tail County case will not appear on the county roster. A sentenced state prisoner may appear in MNDOC. A federal sentenced prisoner may appear in BOP. A federal pretrial or immigration detainee may require a mix of county jail confirmation, U.S. Marshals information, BOP, or ICE. The county jail page says immigration and U.S. Marshals prisoners can be held locally, so absence from one database should not be treated as proof that no custody exists.
The MNDOC locator searches by name or six-digit offender ID.
That state search is for adults under DOC jurisdiction, not a replacement for the county jail roster after a fresh arrest.
Otter Tail County Detention Facilities
Official sources resolved one physical detention facility for the Otter Tail County inmate population build. The county also uses sheriff, court, prosecutor, state DOC, federal, and immigration systems around that facility, but no separate city jail, work-release annex, state prison, BOP institution, or ICE detention center was found physically in Otter Tail County.
- Otter Tail County Jail - the county jail and detention facility in Fergus Falls, holding sentenced and unsentenced county prisoners plus certain boarders for other agencies.
Work Release and Sentence to Serve are programs tied to the detention system, not separate facility pages. The Sheriff's 2024 report says Sentence to Serve uses two crew leaders and up to 12 inmates for nonprofit projects, with 449 hours worked in 2024.
Otter Tail Booking Terms
Roster language can be terse. These terms help separate a current jail fact from a court or prison fact.
- Booking
- The jail intake record after arrest or commitment.
- MNI
- A master name identifier used to help track the person in county records.
- Detainer
- A hold or request from another agency that may affect release.
- Projected release
- An estimated jail release date, not a guarantee.
- MCRO
- Minnesota Court Records Online, the court search system for case filings and dockets.
Otter Tail County Inmate FAQ
How large is the Otter Tail County inmate population?
The 2024 Sheriff's Office year-end report lists an average daily population of 33.00 and 1,094 total adult and juvenile bookings. A custody PDF inspected on June 18, 2026 at 10:00 showed about 35 current entries, but the roster updates every two hours.
How do I search the Otter Tail County inmate population?
Start with the county Jail In Custody List page, open the current PDF, and use the PDF find command for a name, MNI, booking number, statute, or charge phrase. If the person is missing, call the jail and check MCRO, MNDOC, BOP, or ICE as the facts require.
Does the roster show booking photos?
The official roster has a Photo column. The inspected text did not confirm a public image link or a separate mugshot gallery. Booking-photo questions may require a Sheriff's Office data request.
Where are court charges after arrest found?
Use MCRO for court records after an arrest. The jail roster shows custody and booking charges, while court records show filed cases, hearings, orders, and public documents.