North Dakota finds option to relieve prison overcrowding

1 hour ago

KVRR Staff,

Img 7537edit 1536x1028 — Five bunk beds sit vacant in the sleeping quarters of an empty inmate pod at the Burleigh/Morton County Detention Center on Dec. 17, 2025. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) — North Dakota’s prison system will use the Burleigh/Morton County Detention Center to house inmates instead of using the Grand Forks County jail to address its overcrowding problem.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has agreed on a deal for 120 beds at the Burleigh/Morton jail in Bismarck.

The agreement guarantees that the state agency will pay for the beds, even if not all of them are full, at a rate of $105 per day or $4.6 million annually. The daily rate is less than the Burleigh-Morton jail’s typical rate of $115 per bed that it charges other counties and federal agencies.

The state will use the Burleigh/Morton jail for minimum security inmates and programming. The corrections department will provide case managers and treatment staff but the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Office is in charge of staffing correctional officers.

“It’s going to work out pretty nice for both of us,” Colby Braun, director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an interview.

Burleigh County Sheriff Kelly Leben said the contract helps offset the jail’s operating costs.

“We pay the same price to heat and cool that building, whether there’s one inmate in there or 500. It just gets a lot cheaper, the more you got in there,” he said.

The 120-bed area had been used by the jail before, but is sitting unused in part because of staffing challenges, Maj. Trent Wangen of the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Office told a group of state lawmakers last week.

The jail has been able to hire more staff in recent months, making the deal possible.

Braun said the jail in Bismarck along with 96 beds from a temporary mancamp on the grounds of the Missouri River Correctional Center should satisfy the corrections department’s space needs in the short term, which was an issue during this year’s legislative session.

The corrections department hit its capacity for male inmates of 1,624 in 2023. The number of inmates has continued to grow. The male population as of September was 1,919.

Gov. Kelly Armstrong’s budget proposal highlighted money for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to staff and operate a new section of the Grand Forks County Correctional Center.

But the Grand Forks County Commission eventually backed away from the deal.

Grand Forks County Sheriff Andrew Schneider, who operates the jail in Grand Forks, said the negotiations with the corrections department hit some snags.

Schneider said one issue was concerns from county commissioners about inmates being released into the Grand Forks area. Schneider said the corrections department eventually addressed the concern, but Grand Forks County chose not to reopen negotiations.

Schneider said the new section of the Grand Forks jail has been used to allow for some renovations on older parts of the facility. The sheriff said he hopes to have the staff in place by Feb. 1 to use all the beds at the jail.

The Legislature passed a budget for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that included $28.4 million for payments to county and regional jails to house state prisoners.

Leben said state funding in the 2027 legislative session will be key to keeping the arrangement going.

Wangen said he expects the arrangement to continue through multiple two-year budget cycles.

Wangen and Schneider said their jails often provide space for federal agencies, too, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Rachelle Juntunen, deputy director of adult services for the correction department, also told lawmakers that the Heart River Correctional Center in Mandan for female inmates is progressing and is expected to open in late 2027.

When it is open, the Dakota Women’s Correctional Rehab Center in New England could be converted into a facility for up to 126 male inmates, Juntunen said.

In addition, the North Dakota Legislature set aside $20 million to plan a new medium-security prison that’s proposed next to the State Penitentiary.

North Dakota Monitor Deputy Editor Jeff Beach can be reached at jbeach@northdakotamonitor.com.