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Law Enforcement Criticizes 'Bait-and-Switch' Tactics on Treatment Bill

More than 50 Minnesota sheriffs and county attorneys convened at the state capitol in St. Paul on June 5, 2025, to advocate for increased funding aimed at expanding mental health treatment services.
The event followed the Minnesota Legislature’s failure to pass bonding or budget bills in 2024, causing severe budget cuts and a paused 48-hour rule on inmate transfers.
Law enforcement highlighted that individuals with severe mental illness remain jailed, courts suspend their criminal cases, and jails lack proper treatment capacity due to few psychiatric beds statewide.
Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson criticized the budget cuts as a severe and misleading tactic, highlighting that the $10 million allocated depends on the approval of a separate $55 million bonding bill.
The standoff implies ongoing jail overcrowding with mentally ill detainees and signals that without bonding bill passage, mental health service capacity and inmate treatment will remain inadequate.

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‘Jails are not hospitals’: Minnesota sheriffs, attorneys sound alarm on mental health funding

ST. PAUL — From 2013 to 2023, a law known as the “48-hour rule” required Minnesota’s Department of Human Services to transfer inmates who are civilly committed to a state-operated mental health facility within 48 hours. According to Chief Deputy Chris Martin, 10,780 hours and 453 days is how long a mentally ill individual was held in the Clay County Correctional Facility until this January. Martin said the individual was admitted in 2023, and fo…

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