Cook County Jail Inmate Lookup

Cook County Jail Overview

Cook County Jail is operated by the Cook County Sheriff's Office at the Cook County Law Enforcement Center in Grand Marais. The local facility is not a large long-term jail. Cook County describes the jail as five individual holding cells for first appearance and pretrial inmates, plus a 10-bed Work Release/Huber cell for people serving community service, Sentence to Service, or Huber sentences when they are eligible for that local program. Adult men and women may be housed. Juveniles are not housed in the Cook County Jail.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections 2024 inspection classifies the facility as a 72-hour holding facility. That classification matters for anyone checking custody because a person may appear on a Cook County roster entry while being housed somewhere else, or may be moved after the short local holding period. Cook County's own jail description says first appearance and pretrial inmates can be held up to 72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays. Long-term pretrial inmates and sentenced inmates under one year who are not eligible for work release are housed in other counties and may return to Cook County for court or appear by Zoom from the outside facility.

The official Cook County jail page is the best facility-specific source for the building description, visitor schedule, and Reliance phone reference. The Cook County Jail page shows the local jail role and facility layout.

Use that page with the roster page and the jail phone line when timing matters, because a short-term facility can change a person's housing location faster than a static document can explain.

Cook County Jail Capacity and Population

The 2024 MNDOC inspection lists 15 approved secure coed beds at Cook County Jail. The same inspection identifies 34 percent operating capacity and a 5.10 operational-capacity figure. Those numbers line up with the county's description of five holding cells and a separate 10-bed Work Release/Huber cell, but they should not be read as a typical busy jail population. MNDOC's FY25 performance report listed Cook County's Class I / 72-hour hold average daily population at 0.35, with a very high per diem based on ADP because the reported population was far below capacity.

The regional jail study also describes Cook County's average daily population as extremely low in recent years, with 2024 ADP around 0.1 and a 2029 forecast around 0.3. The June 9, 2026 public roster had two total records. One record was a Cook boarder housed at Carlton County Sheriff's Office, and another was a hold for Lake County Sheriff's Office. That snapshot supports the central custody point for Cook County: the local jail is the first place to understand the case, but the current housing field may send the search to another county facility.

How to Look Up an Inmate at Cook County Jail

Start with the Cook County Jail Roster page. The roster is a public document-center PDF rather than a searchable local database. The June 9, 2026 roster PDF showed front mugshot, name, age, arresting agency, arrest time, charges, bail, and current housing information. If a person is not in the PDF or the PDF looks stale, call the Cook County Sheriff's Office at 218-387-3030 or use the sheriff records request process for records that can be released.

1. Open the official Cook County Jail Roster page and select the current roster PDF.
2. Read the name, arresting agency, arrest time, charge language, bail field, and current housing field together.
3. If the current housing field lists another jail, contact that jail before planning a visit or bond step.
4. Use Minnesota Court Records Online for court case details and the Minnesota DOC Locator only after a person is committed to DOC custody.

The county roster is the right starting point for most recent Cook County arrests. It is not the same system as MCRO, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension public conviction search, Minnesota VINE, the Minnesota DOC Locator, BOP, or ICE. MCRO tracks court files after charges reach the court. The DOC Locator covers adults committed to the Commissioner of Corrections and still under DOC jurisdiction. Federal and immigration custody use BOP and ICE systems, and no BOP prison or ICE detention facility was located in Cook County during the research pass.

Cook County Jail Address and Contact

Use the jail's main phone number for time-sensitive custody, visitation, and housing questions. The jail roster page identifies a jail administrator / dispatch supervisor contact, while the current sheriff page lists Ben Hallberg as Sheriff. Because the jail page and sheriff page had a role-label conflict for Ben Hallberg, use the current sheriff page for the sheriff name and the jail page for facility operations. The jail is near the Cook County Courthouse and county government campus in Grand Marais.

Official pages did not publish jail-specific visitor parking, transit, or ADA entrance details. The Minnesota Judicial Branch page for the nearby courthouse notes free public surface-lot and free on-street parking at the courthouse, but jail visitors should confirm the visitor entrance and parking arrangements directly with the facility. People traveling through Grand Marais on Minnesota Highway 61 or from the Gunflint Trail corridor should use local navigation to the county government campus and call before arrival if the visit depends on a court-transport day.

Visiting Someone at Cook County Jail

Cook County publishes regular in-person visiting windows and an additional evening window on days inmates are transported to Cook County Jail for court. The research did not locate a detailed local visitor approval form, dress code, video visit vendor, or ID rule page, so do not assume a visit is available just because the schedule says a window exists. Call the jail before traveling, especially because the facility is small, some Cook inmates are housed outside the county, and court transportation can affect where a person is physically located.

Mail, Phone, and Money at Cook County Jail

Cook County's jail page and FAQ give more detail about phone access and items than about a formal mail format. Phone minutes are handled through Reliance Telephone, and the FAQ warns not to buy non-Reliance phone cards because only Reliance cards work in the facility. The FAQ says people may leave money for an inmate and the Jail Administrator can purchase requested items, subject to restrictions. The county also lists Huber and medical request fees in the 2025 fee schedule.

The FAQ also says magazines and books become jail property, pornography and children items are not accepted, and food, drinks, or unopened liquids such as soap, shampoo, and lotion are not accepted. If the roster says a Cook County inmate is housed in Carlton County Jail, Lake County Jail, or another outside jail, follow the holding jail's mail and money rules instead of Cook County's general FAQ.

Booking and Intake at Cook County Jail

A typical local custody path starts with arrest or citation by the Cook County Sheriff's Office or another law-enforcement agency, followed by booking, screening, and a court or release decision. The jail's 72-hour classification means the local holding period is limited for many pretrial inmates, excluding weekends and holidays. The county's enforcement page adds that sheriff transport and bailiff officers provide court security and transport inmates to outside jail facilities. That is why the roster's "currently housed at" information is so important in Cook County.

Minnesota local detention standards require a detention information system and routine population reporting. Minnesota law also requires correctional facility standards for medical and mental-health screening, suicide prevention, medication verification, well-being checks, discharge planning, and referrals or transfers to outside care. The 2024 Cook County inspection found the facility clean and well-maintained, but also identified corrective actions around custody-staff medical training, release-of-information forms in files, and how well-being checks should be conducted when inmates are in cells.

About Cook County Jail

Cook County Jail is part of a compact custody system for Minnesota's northeastern North Shore county. Its local role is first appearance holding, short-term pretrial custody, Work Release/Huber, court transport, and connection to outside facilities when the local jail is not the proper long-term placement. The county's recent Law Enforcement Center addition and remodeling work is facilities context, not proof of a changed jail capacity. Official county updates described space and safety concerns around the Law Enforcement Center and judicial functions, including evidence storage and a larger sallyport, while the most specific jail capacity figures remain the MNDOC inspection numbers.

For reentry and programming, the strongest local detail is the 10-bed Work Release/Huber cell for eligible people serving community service, Sentence to Service, or Huber sentences. No local GED, vocational, religious, tablet, or substance-use program page was captured for Cook County Jail. For sentenced state-prison custody, use Minnesota DOC resources instead of the county jail page. For county jail custody notifications, Minnesota VINE can help track release notification, while MNDOC's HAVEN resources apply to DOC custody and supervision.