Entrance sign at the gate of the Missouri River Correctional Center in Bismarck on June 6, 2024. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
By: Mary Steurer
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will begin using a waitlist to decide who to admit to prison first after running out of beds for male inmates.
North Dakota’s prison system has been over its capacity for men since July 1, 2023. As of Monday, it had roughly 150 more male prisoners than it had space for.
In the meantime, the agency has been sending some of its inmates to county jails with open beds. Most of these overflow beds have been provided by Heart of America Correction and Treatment Center in Rugby, Southwest Multi-County Correction Center in Dickinson and McKenzie County Correctional Facility in Watford City.
But the county jails no longer have extra beds to spare, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Monday.
The agency is now following a prioritization plan to figure out who to admit when beds open up and who to defer, said Rachelle Juntunen, the agency’s deputy director of adult services. The department will still follow through with previously scheduled arrivals of new inmates for the next few weeks, but will begin taking in prisoners on a priority basis sometime in mid-November.
Generally, individuals waiting on state prison beds will be prioritized according to the severity of their crimes. Someone convicted of a violent class AA felony would be considered high priority for a bed, whereas someone found guilty of a nonviolent class A misdemeanor would be considered lower priority, according to the agency’s prioritization chart.
“Public safety continues to be our top priority as we enter prioritization,” Colby Braun, director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in a Monday statement.
The plan only applies to admissions. No one will be let out of prison early to open up more beds, Juntunen said.
People with advanced medical needs may also end up higher on the waitlist, she added.
“We have 24/7 nursing, we have behavioral health staff within the facilities,” Juntunen said, whereas many county jails do not. “So that makes a difference.”
In some cases, the department also takes the length of someone’s sentence into consideration, she added.
“If they have a really short sentence, there’s a chance they might not come to us,” Juntunen said. “It’s a possibility they would never leave county jail — they would serve the remainder of their sentence at the county.”
Before, county jails that were holding people waiting to be admitted to state prison didn’t get reimbursed for housing those inmates, said Juntunen. Now that the state has activated its prioritization plan, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will begin compensating jails for this expense.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had 1,779 male inmates as of Monday, but it only has room for 1,624.
The agency has capacity for 262 incarcerated women. As of Monday, it had 261 female inmates.
Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner said the Cass County Jail has been over capacity for a couple years.
Jahner said the state running out of beds will affect his agency “immensely.”
“We just don’t have the capacity to hold extra state inmates,” he said.
On Monday, the Cass County Jail had 323 people in custody, plus 18 in overflow beds at other jails and 20 in a community supervision program. Its capacity is 348, Jahner said.
He said when the jail doesn’t have space to admit someone, they’re cited and released.
“In 2023, 904 people were denied access to the Cass County Jail because of our capacity,” he said. “So far this year, 417 have been.”
Jahner stressed that the jail doesn’t release anyone considered a danger to the public.
This June, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation went before the North Dakota Emergency Commission with a request for $1.2 million to help it house more inmates at Bismarck’s Missouri River Correctional Center. Members of the commission at the time voiced concerns it did not have the statutory authority to provide the money.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation later withdrew its request and said it would work with more county jails to find additional overflow beds.
The state’s adult prisons include the North Dakota State Penitentiary, James River Correctional Center, Missouri River Correctional Center, Heart River Correctional Center and Dakota Women’s Rehabilitation and Correctional Center.
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