Overview: Systemic reform and pre-trial safety in Minnesota jails
Contributing Writer Izzy Canizares examines the high-stakes legislative efforts led by grassroots coalitions to reform Minnesota’s pre-trial detention system. The piece explores the stalled Pre-Trial Data Transparency Act, the newly effective Larry R. Hill Medical Reform Act, and the stark health disparities impacting Black Minnesotans behind bars.
This year has seen the introduction of more protections for Minnesotans held pretrial, most immediately more accessible healthcare in jails, though its implementation has been delayed. As we look at our current jail system, these bills could mean slow but steady progress in decreasing the large disparity of Black inmates within Minnesota jails.
Activist groups such as the MN Justice for All Coalition and Minnesota Freedom Fund have lobbied for reforms in both the pretrial and immigration systems. This past legislative session, these groups lobbied for multiple bills that would have given Minnesotans held pretrial stronger rights and stopped the current prison-labor system.
Stalled legislative proposals and data gaps
One such bill, the Pretrial Data Transparency Act, received bipartisan support and passed in the House, but ultimately died in the Senate. The bill (HF 1775/SF 1908) would have established a streamlined data collection process for people held in jails across Minnesota.
While some counties have updated dashboards showing their current jail populations, the data varies significantly by jurisdiction. With the delay of the Pretrial Data Transparency Act, data on people held in county jails will continue to be harder to track, making racial disparities within the justice system harder to expose.
This is the second time the bill was proposed in the Legislature. Still, Will Cooley of the Minnesota Justice Resource Center (MNJRC) said legislators believed there was not enough funding this year to support accurate statewide data tracking.
“What we learned this year at the Capitol was that it’s a matter of money. A fiscal note came in, and it’s expensive to set this up, and there wasn’t a lot of money at the Legislature this year. It was a policy year, not a budget year,” Cooley said. “Two years in a row, that’s what we found out. Legislators were unwilling to fund this.”
Despite these setbacks, Jana Kooren, MNJRC associate director and PJM Steering Committee member, said the coalition remains committed to continuing the effort to reform the pretrial system.
“This is not the end of anything. In fact, what we are aiming for as a broader coalition moving forward is really a much larger transformation,” Kooren said. “We’re including the collection and analysis of pretrial data and integrating it into a larger scale of reforms we’re pushing for, including a bill to replace the harmful practice of cash bail with a system that detains and releases people based on evidence of a person’s circumstances as opposed to wealth.”
Alongside the Pretrial Data Transparency Act, the Intentional Release & Detain bill was introduced to shift Minnesota away from its cash bail system toward an intentional-detaining-and-release system. While it did not pass this session, Kooren said the coalition will continue advocating for both bills together.
“The reason why is that even after a new system where we eliminate cash [bail], it’s important for us to know exactly what is happening, to make sure that any new systems that are created are closely monitored and evaluated for effectiveness,” Kooren said. “Even though we want to create a new system, we still think that system should be analyzed and transparent.”
Healthcare access and mental health disparities
One bill that did pass was the Larry R. Hill Medical Reform Act (HF 264), after some initial pushback. It requires all correctional facilities in Minnesota, including jails, to provide an inmate’s medication that they had before entering incarceration.
The bill was initially signed last year, but the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association and Advanced Correctional Healthcare sued the state to block it before it took effect, arguing the law could force staff to give medications that could be harmful to some inmates.
The amended version passed this year and took effect in August. It adds an exception allowing denial of someone’s prescription if a healthcare professional determines against it. For inmates, especially Black Minnesotans, that could mean more complications in receiving medication, in a system that already sees Black inmates with higher rates of medical issues.
“Psychologists are so booked out, when I went in to try to get my meds in [Ramsey County jail], I was put on a seven-month waiting list to see the psych,” said Josh McMillen, a member of the End Slavery Minnesota Coalition, describing his experience trying to receive medical care while incarcerated. “There’s a lack of care and a lack of staff. There’s been staff members that have quit because of how the inmates are treated. They’re not able to keep up with the amount of people that they’re arresting.”
Within Minnesota’s prison system, mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder are common. Data from the Minnesota Electronic Health Record Consortium shows the percentage of Minnesota adults experiencing depression in 2025 was 17%, but among jailed Minnesotans, it was up to 31%.
Black Americans also face a separate dilemma, being consistently misdiagnosed at a higher rate than white Americans. One 2018 study found Black individuals were 2.4 times more likely to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia than white individuals. CDC data from 2021 showed Black women experienced a maternal mortality rate more than twice that of non-Black women.
“People that are already being discriminated against, minorities, Indigenous population, they all got it worse,” McMillen said. “I’m white and I grew up poor, so I’m in that sector where we get targeted, but I have seen myself, even though it was hard, get access quicker than somebody who was a minority. It’s just a white supremacist system.”
Looking ahead to the 2027 legislative session
The next legislative session in Minnesota starts in January 2027, as activist groups prepare to reintroduce the stalled reform bills.
“We definitely remain really committed to the slate of bills, so we will be focused on the transformation of the pretrial system and our slate of reforms,” Kooren said. “Talking with not only the legislators, but with community members about what that looks like, what it means and why we think this transformation is important, and will make Minnesota a better state for everyone.”
Izzy Canizares is a freelance journalist and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. He welcomes reader responses at isabellacani0102@gmail.com.