As Hennepin County rushes to re-board inmates, family members open up about impact

NINA MOINI: There were 680 people incarcerated in Hennepin County Jail as of this morning. That's 80 more than the limit set by the State Department of Corrections. The DOC says in a report that understaffing in the jail is putting the safety of inmates at risk.

The report also says that in the last two years, seven people have died while incarcerated there or after being transferred to the hospital. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt has disagreed with the findings. She's also said she's working to move people through agreements with other counties.

Her office requested an extension from the DOC and got one. Its new deadline is December 7. It's unclear if the jail will meet this new deadline. We wanted to talk to someone with a personal stake in this issue. So joining me now is Rose Lobley, who has a relative in the jail. Hi, Rose. Thanks for making the time today.

ROSE LOBLEY: Hi.

NINA MOINI: And also we have attorney Anna Hall of the Legal Rights Center on the line. Thank you as well, Anna.

ANNA HALL: It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: Rose, I wanted to start with you. And thank you so much for sharing with us. I understand you prefer not to share the full name of your loved one. But can you tell me how the two of you are connected and what you've been hearing from her since she's been in the jail?

ROSE LOBLEY: I'm her stepmother. And her kids are my step grandchildren. And just listening to her talk, she's kind of confused. She's not knowing what she's basically going through. I asked her, what's she getting-- medication. Because she has mental health issues.

As of right now, I don't think that she has gotten her medication. I don't know. I was told that she was on a list to be seen. But I need them to make sure that they're taking this into consideration. Because due to the fact that she lost her mom, she's dealing with the loss of her mom still, which was also a big part of her helping and helping her and stuff like that.

NINA MOINI: Sure. And how long has she been there, can I ask?

ROSE LOBLEY: I'm thinking-- I think she's been there 30 plus days.

NINA MOINI: OK. And how much longer would she serve?

ROSE LOBLEY: I'm thinking she would be serving close to four years if she is convicted, totally.

NINA MOINI: OK. Anna, I wanted to bring you into the conversation. Obviously, everybody's different. Every situation is different and individual. But what have you been hearing generally from clients about this issue of understaffing? How does that impact people serving time in jail?

ANNA HALL: Yeah. Thank you. One thing I want to make sure that listeners understand about the folks who are in the Hennepin County Jail is that none of them are convicted at the time that they're serving their time in jail. So these are folks who are not serving sentences yet. They're in their pretrial stage.

Folks who are at the jail-- Hennepin County hasn't had in-person visits for quite a long time. So as an attorney, I can go visit my clients. But loved ones are not permitted to do in-person visits at the jail. So it's one really serious way that understaffing is impacting the people in the jail.

Obviously, connection to loved ones, connection to community has been shown in study after study to reduce recidivism, increase quality of life, both for the people who are currently in custody as well as their loved ones in the community more broadly. So I would highlight that as one significant way that understaffing is impacting people being held at the Hennepin County Jail.

One other thing that Rose noted is there's often delays in medical care as a result of the understaffing. Understaffing means fewer guards, but it also means fewer people providing things like medical care, guards to get people to their medical appointments.

The county just paid out a $3.4 million settlement in the case of a man who had a perforated intestine and wasn't seen promptly by any medical staff in the jail. And he died as a result. And as the DOC' report shows, that's happened to six other people over the last two years in Hennepin County Jail.

So I would note that as well. These people are unconvicted. And they're innocent of the charges that they're facing at the time that they're in the jail. And yet they are facing potential death as a result of being held at Hennepin County.

NINA MOINI: Rose, when you hear about the staffing situation in the jail, does that make you concerned about your stepdaughter's safety?

ROSE LOBLEY: I'm really worried because if she-- I don't know what's going through her mind right now. I just need her medical conditions addressed. If she gets the help that she needs, will she be able to-- because she told-- her exact words to me were, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm lost.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Anna, when you hear these types of situations from clients and families who are not able to just get a handle on what is going on with their loved one, at this point, we know that there's still understaffing and more people there than the DOC would like. From your perspective, what is the best solution right now?

ANNA HALL: It's an answer that feels so simple. It's almost absurd. The answer is release more people and take fewer people into custody. The understaffing problem-- when we talk about it as understaffing, I think what we miss is that we're overpopulating the jail. And an easy solution to that one that is both cost-effective and also more humane, is to release more people.

There's a number of ways that can happen. There's something that happens in Ramsey County called sequential bail review, which happens when someone's been in custody for a while, for instance, Rose's loved one who's been in custody for over 30 days.

Somebody's conditions aren't meant to keep them in custody. They're meant to ensure that they're safe when they're out of custody, and that they'll come back to court. So we could be looking at the people who've been in custody for extended periods of time and asking, why are they still there? Do they need to still be there?

That kind of process is something that involves judges. It involves prosecutors. It's something that, frankly, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office should be spearheading because the real problem here is not having too few staff. The real problem is having too many people at the jail.

NINA MOINI: And the sheriff's office, for its part, says it has no authority on when someone is released from custody and that jail staff follow the outcomes of the judicial process. They are focusing on working to recruit more staff as a longer-term solution, and also this idea of moving and transporting people to serve their time in other areas.

Rose, has that come up at all, moving your loved one? And what type of an impact would that have?

ROSE LOBLEY: Yeah, I heard-- I seen that on the news. And I asked Anna about the jails being overpopulated was-- could my person be able to be on house arrest? She hasn't been in trouble or anything for over seven years.

It would be a problem with trying to get transportation to and from her. Yeah, that would be a problem. I mean, would she be placed further? And there would be kids involved to have to be transported.

NINA MOINI: Anna, is that in line with what you're hearing from other folks, too, that the distance of where are they going would create an issue?

ANNA HALL: I think distance certainly would create an issue for loved ones on the outside to remain in contact with the people they care about who are in custody. One of the other really big problems is that sometimes those moves happen without communicating with counsel or with the judges even.

And so we have heard of many situations where people are moved to another jail, and their attorney has arranged for them to be released to treatment, and the judge has ordered them released to treatment. But that release is delayed significantly, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. Because they are now in custody in another county.

And that becomes a serious issue because if what we're trying to do is reduce the number of people in the jail and get them the help that they need, moving them to other counties is really getting in the way of moving a case forward and, frankly, getting in the way of executing a judge's lawful order to release someone.

NINA MOINI: What do you say, Anna, to critics who argue that releasing people would put the public at risk or public safety at risk?

ANNA HALL: I mean, what I would say is that, again, the people who are currently held in custody have not been convicted of a crime yet. There are assessments that can be done of whether someone is a risk to public safety.

But the truth is that study after study shows that people during the pretrial period, so between when they are arrested and when their case is resolved, have an exceptionally low re-offense rate and have a very, very high rate of coming back to court, even without any interventions at all.

So when we're talking about the cost, for example, of keeping someone in custody, if somebody were to be released into the community and receive intensive supervision, be on electronic home monitoring as Rose spoke to, those are lower-cost ways to achieve virtually the same result.

I think that people have a misconception that people during the pretrial period are out in the community wreaking havoc. And that's just simply not what's happening.

NINA MOINI: Rose, I'd like to give the last word to you. Your stepdaughter is in a difficult place right now. What are your hopes for her, for her future in the short term and moving on in the long term?

ROSE LOBLEY: Well, I'm hoping that she at least gets a chance to come home and just be able to transmute. Because she's not a person that doesn't go to court. She's not violent. She does go to court.

She needs to be home with her kids. She has two teenage daughters and a nine-year-old, at least for right now until they decide on down the road what's going to take place. I prefer her to be home with her kids and home where she can take care of her business and be able to get the mental health, that help that she needs.

NINA MOINI: Rose, Anna, thank you both so much for joining us this afternoon.

ROSE LOBLEY: Thank you.

ANNA HALL: Thank you for having us.

NINA MOINI: Rose Lobley lives in Minneapolis and has a loved one in Hennepin County Jail. Anna Hall is a lawyer with the Legal Rights Center. And in about an hour, the Hennepin County Board will be meeting. On its agenda are contracts with 21 counties that would allow the county to move people to other jails. We'll have updates on what comes out of that meeting on air and online.