Search St. Louis County Jail Inmates

St. Louis County Jail Overview

The official jail page identifies St. Louis County Jail as the sheriff-operated county jail in Duluth. The jail holds offenders from jurisdictions across St. Louis County, including local arrestees, pretrial detainees, sentenced local inmates, fugitives wanted in other Minnesota counties, fugitives wanted in other states, and prisoners from the U.S. Marshals office when those people are housed locally. Sheriff Gordon Ramsay is listed by the county as sheriff, and the sheriff staff page lists Jessica Pete as Jail Administrator.

The jail is not the same thing as a Minnesota state prison. A person booked after a Duluth, Hibbing, Virginia, tribal, county, or state patrol arrest may appear on the St. Louis County Jail roster while the case is pending. A person sentenced to prison is searched through the Minnesota Department of Corrections after transfer. That distinction matters because the county roster is a custody report, while MNDOC records track sentenced prison and supervision status.

The county's about-jail page says the Duluth jail is a 197-bed facility and that the jail system also includes 72-hour Range lockups in Hibbing and Virginia. County material also says the jail provides food, clothing, bedding, indoor recreation, substance-abuse groups, education, religious programs, and medical care. In April 2025, the county announced that jail health services earned National Commission on Correctional Health Care accreditation in partnership with Aspirus St. Luke's.

St. Louis County Jail Capacity

Published St. Louis County Jail population data is strongest for capacity and roster access, not for a fixed current head count. The official about-jail page gives the Duluth jail capacity, while the roster page gives the current inmate list as a PDF that updates hourly. The research did not locate a current county-published average daily population dashboard, so no current ADP or crowding rate should be inferred from the roster alone.

The county roster page also states that inmates may be transferred to another jail to relieve housing overcrowding and that such transfers are not disciplinary. When the roster lists a location other than St. Louis County Jail, the reader should contact the listed facility. In historical material, the jail history page reports 2,127 bookings in 1979, with an average daily population of 87.9, a high count of 116, and a low count of 69. Those older figures help show the jail's long public-record trail, but they are not current operating counts.

Look Up St. Louis County Jail Inmates

The main lookup path is the sheriff's official jail roster page. St. Louis County does not publish a fielded name-search database for the jail. It publishes a current roster PDF and a separate 48-hour release roster PDF. The roster page warns that a person may be in intake and not yet listed until a booking number has been assigned, so a very recent arrest can require time, a phone call, or a release-roster check.

1. Open the sheriff's jail roster page and read the hourly-update and intake-delay notice.
2. Use the View Roster link for the current St. Louis County Jail roster PDF.
3. Search inside the PDF by last name with the browser or PDF find tool.
4. Check the location field, because some inmates may be housed at another jail after transfer.
5. Read the booking number, booking date, charges, bail, order type, arresting agency, and projected release date if shown.
6. If the person is gone from the current roster, check the 48-hour release roster before assuming a records gap.

The roster is the best source for a current county-jail custody check. It is not the only source. Older booking records, arrest reports, releasable mugshots, and incident records go through the sheriff's public data request process handled by Central Records in Duluth. Sentenced state prisoners are searched in the MNDOC Locator. Federal custody is searched through the BOP Inmate Locator after BOP commitment, and immigration custody is searched through ICE ODLS when applicable.

For a broader explanation of the roster fields, the St. Louis County jail inmate records page separates current jail custody from older records and state custody.

St. Louis County Jail Contact

The jail phone is the practical line for current custody questions, property pickup instructions, and day-of-visit confirmation. The sheriff's Central Records Division is the records fallback when the public roster does not answer the question. Public data requests are handled at the Duluth courthouse location, even though the sheriff has multiple public locations.

St. Louis County Jail Visits

St. Louis County Jail lobby kiosk visits must be preregistered through Reliance 1 to 8 days before the visit. The county publishes lobby kiosk windows, not a broad walk-in visiting rule. A visitor should confirm the inmate's location first because the jail roster can list another facility if a transfer was used to relieve crowding. Property pickup is separate from visiting and requires a call to the jail and picture ID.

The jail's communication vendor is Reliance Telephone. Reliance is used for phone services, texting, voicemail, and video visiting features. The county communication page states that, except for attorney calls, jail communications are recorded and monitored. A voicemail line is listed as 218-409-8366.

St. Louis County Jail Mail and Money

The sheriff's jail communication page says regular unprivileged mail changed to TextBehind on March 1, 2025. Regular mail is not sent directly to the jail. The sender must use the TextBehind mailing format and include the inmate's LID from the jail roster. TextBehind copies or scans items and sends the processed copy to the facility. Legal mail is different and should not be sent through the regular TextBehind path.

The county's inmate funds page identifies Stellar Services and JailATM as the deposit path. The county states that deposited money first applies to fees owed before money is available for commissary or phone use. The source material did not publish a complete county fee table for each deposit method, so the table below sticks to confirmed service roles.

The official St. Louis County Jail page screenshot in the project image set shows the jail's local information hub before visitors move into roster, visiting, communication, and funds pages.

That official page is the safest starting point when a policy changes, because the roster, visiting, property, communication, and funds links branch from the sheriff's jail section.

St. Louis County Jail Intake

Local booking starts after an arrest or court hold by an agency such as the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office, Duluth Police Department, Hibbing Police Department, Virginia Police Department, Fond du Lac Tribal Police Department, Minnesota State Patrol, or another law-enforcement agency. The roster appears only after a booking number is assigned. Before that point, the person may be in custody but not yet visible on the public PDF.

The roster fields are the public result of booking and custody processing. Entries may show full name, booking number, booking date and time, date of birth, age, location, bail, arresting agency, charge text, offense level, order type, and projected release date when present. The roster snippets reviewed did not show a public mugshot field, so booking photos should be requested through the public data process when releasable. Court charges and court dates should be checked through Minnesota Court Records Online because roster charges may change after prosecutor review.

About St. Louis County Jail

St. Louis County Jail serves a large northern Minnesota county with public-safety operations in Duluth, Hibbing, Virginia, Ely, Cook, Mountain Iron, Rice Lake, and other communities. The Duluth jail is the main adult facility, while the Hibbing and Virginia lockups support short-term Range-area holding. The jail page states that the facility provides food, clothing, bedding, indoor recreation, programs, and medical care through licensed medical staff and outside providers when needed.

Minnesota jail standards and state data laws frame how jail information is created and shared. The county roster disclaimer cites Minnesota Statutes sections 13.82, 13.85, and 641.05. Those laws cover law-enforcement data, corrections and detention data, and sheriff jail records. The practical result is a public roster for current custody, a release roster for recent releases, and a records request path for older or more specific material.