Search Brown County Jail Inmates

Brown County Jail Overview

Brown County Jail, also described by the county as the Brown County Jail and Law Enforcement Center, is at 15 S Washington Street in New Ulm. It is operated by the Brown County Sheriff's Office. County forms identify Sheriff Jason S. Seidl as sheriff, while the jail guide identifies Steve Appel as jail administrator. The facility was built in 1994 and functions as a Minnesota county jail rather than a state prison, federal prison, immigration detention center, or city lockup.

The jail holds male and female offenders in local custody. Brown County describes its jail population as people charged and awaiting trial, people found guilty and awaiting sentence, people serving less than one year, people sentenced to one year or more and awaiting Minnesota DOC transfer, and people held on another jurisdiction's warrant pending transfer. That range explains why a person in the Brown County Jail roster may have a local case, a New Ulm police arrest, an outside-county hold, a DOC hold, or an out-of-state warrant.

The official Brown County Jail page shows the local jail services and capacity summary.

The overview matters because it identifies Brown County Jail as the county's custody facility and not as a Minnesota DOC prison.

Brown County Jail Capacity

Minnesota DOC's 2024 inspection report confirms that Brown County Jail is an approved secure coed 56-bed facility. The same inspection uses 80 percent operating capacity, which gives the jail 44.80 operational capacity. The FY25 MNDOC Performance Report lists Brown County's average daily population at 12.90. The roster PDF inspected for the research on June 18, 2026 showed 7 people listed in custody, although that single report is only a point-in-time count.

Those figures show a jail operating below its approved capacity in the available official data. No official source found a recent consent decree, jail-construction plan, closure notice, or Brown County jail-specific litigation source in the past two-year sweep.

Lookup Brown County Jail Inmates

The correct current-custody lookup route is the official Brown County Jail Roster PDF. It is a report, not a searchable database. It has no name-search box, booking-number field, dropdown, tabs, pagination controls, or inmate-profile click-through. The report shows a timestamp, then roster entries with name, booking date and time, age, bail, arresting agency, charges, status, and projected release date when one is listed.

1. Open the Brown County Jail Roster PDF from the county website.
2. Check the "Current as of" timestamp before relying on the roster.
3. Use the PDF viewer's find function to search a last name.
4. Read the whole entry, including arresting agency, charge text, bail, status, and projected release date.
5. Call Brown County Jail at 507-233-6775 or the Sheriff's Office at 507-233-6700 when the person is not listed.
6. Use the MNDOC locator after a prison commitment, BOP for sentenced federal custody, ICE ODLS for immigration custody, and MCRO for court case details.

A missing name does not prove there is no custody issue. The person may have been released, transferred, booked in another county, committed to Minnesota DOC, held federally, held by ICE, or listed under a different name.

Brown County Jail Contact

The jail and sheriff's office are in the Brown County Law Enforcement Center in downtown New Ulm. The sheriff's office page lists the same building for the office, with the sheriff's office on the second floor. Use the jail number for current custody questions and the sheriff's main number for broader office routing. The county's Data Practices Inventory is the records fallback when a booking record, older roster copy, incident report, or booking photo is not published online.

Visit Brown County Jail

Brown County's jail guide lists in-person visiting hours and scheduling rules. Visitors must call the jail 24 hours in advance, provide photo identification, and sign in 30 minutes before the end of the visiting period to receive a full 20-minute visit. Inmates are allowed one visitor per visiting day for up to 20 minutes. Children under 18 must be with a parent or legal guardian and may visit a parent or legal guardian.

Visits can be denied, refused, or terminated for jail safety and security. People under the influence of alcohol or drugs are not allowed to visit. Male and female inmates are not allowed together in the visiting room, so waiting may occur based on who is being visited.

Mail Phone Money

Brown County Jail mail must come through the United States Postal Service and is subject to inspection. The jail does not accept stamps, envelopes, or mail left by visitors. Photos are allowed except Polaroid photos, and they cannot include gang graffiti, unclothed persons, alcohol, or cigarettes. Staff do not take messages for inmates, but the jail guide lists inmate voicemail at 507-571-2751 and warns that voicemail is not confidential.

Jail staff are not allowed to share inmate-account information with anyone other than the inmate. Commissary is described as a general-store service for basic needs such as hygiene items, writing items, over-the-counter healthcare products, and food products.

Brown County Jail Booking

Booking at Brown County Jail follows a local custody path after arrest, warrant pickup, transfer, or hold. An arrest by Brown County Sheriff, New Ulm Police Department, another county, probation, DOC, or another agency can lead to transport to the jail unless the person is routed elsewhere. Intake creates the record that can later appear in the roster PDF if the person remains in custody when the report updates.

State jail standards also shape intake and custody. Minnesota Rules Chapter 2911 covers adult detention facility standards, and Rule 2911.5000 requires a formal count system plus personal well-being observations at least once every 30 minutes. Rule 2911.7100 requires written policy for postadmission screening and referral for inmates with special needs, including mental illness, developmental disability, functional impairments, and disabilities.

Brown County Jail Programs

Brown County lists several jail services and programs tied to daily custody. The jail provides three balanced meals each day, access to medical staff, mail service, commissary, inmate banking, and phone service. It also lists GED support, assistance with substance abuse, religious services, Huber Work Release, Sentenced to Service, in-house worker opportunities, Parenting Inside Out, religious programming, and self-help programming.

The official Sheriff's Office page gives the public contact block for the office that operates the jail.

The sheriff contact page is the right source for operator information, while the jail roster PDF remains the source for current inmate listings.

Brown County Jail vs DOC

Brown County Jail is a county jail, not a state prison. People in pretrial custody, short local sentences, local holds, and pending transfer status are searched through Brown County. Once a person is committed to the Commissioner of Corrections, the Minnesota Department of Corrections locator is the correct tool. MNDOC warns that newly sentenced people can take several business days to appear. For local jail release notices, use Minnesota VINE through VINELink rather than the MNDOC prison locator.

Federal and immigration custody also use different systems. Sentenced federal prisoners are searched through the BOP inmate locator. Federal pretrial custody is handled through the U.S. Marshals Service, and no official source identified Brown County Jail as a USMS contract detention site. ICE detainees are searched through ICE ODLS, which does not use the Brown County roster as its public detainee locator.