About Prison

The Lyon County Jail is the local jail facility for Lyon County, Minnesota.  It is run by the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office, under Lyon County Sheriff Eric Wallen.  The jail is located next to the Lyon County Law Enforcement Center, which is next to the Lyon County Courthouse.

The Lyon County Jail has designated several individuals to be in charge of answering questions about the jail.  If you have questions about jail operations, you can contact Brad Marks at 507-929-6647.  If you have questions about work or school release programs, other release programs, or health issues, you can contact Sergeant Mike Portinga at 507-929-6640.  If you have questions about jail records or jail reception, you can contact Hillary Buysse at the jail’s main number, 507-929-6623, during regular office hours.

For several years, the state of Minnesota has permitted local county boards to authorize their county jails to collect correction-related expenses from their offenders.  The Lyons County Board has authorized the Lyons County Jail to collect these fees.  All convicted inmates must be a fee of $20.00 per day for days in jail, including credited days.  Inmates who are released will be billed for any unpaid balance, which must be paid within 30 days of release.  An inmate who cannot pay the balance due in full can make payment arrangements, but must do so within 20 days of release.  Inmates can apply for a waiver of fees in writing by writing to the Sheriff or the Jail Administrator within 5 days of release.  Accounts that are not paid in full or where an inmate does not arrange a payment plan or misses payments will be turned over to a collection agency for collections.

Some offenders may be able to participate in a work release program.  To participate in that type of program, an offender must meet with a Correctional Sergeant prior to starting their sentence.  Inmates who do not report before their sentence begin will experience delays in being able to participate in the work release program until there is time to verify employment and paperwork.

As a local jail facility, the Lyon County Jail is a multi-purpose facility that houses male and female adult offenders.  This means that it holds inmates in a variety of different states of incarceration, from those who have just been arrested to those who have been convicted and ordered to serve their sentences in a local jail facility.  This might include people who have convicted of misdemeanor or felony offenses that have been sentenced to terms of one-year or less.  This means that the facility holds both pre-trial detainees and convicted criminals, and must be prepared to handle inmates at all detention levels and security risks.   In addition, it may hold inmates who are in transition between other facilities or how have been moved from another facility to be held at the Lyon County Jail to attend court or for other administrative purposes.  In addition, jails may hold people who have been sentenced to time in state prison facilities, but are awaiting transfer; those who violate parole or probation; and those who are being detained for other jurisdictions.

Lyon County Jail Addresses

Physical Address

Lyon County Jail
611 West Main Street
Marshall, MN 56258

Mailing Address

The Lyon County Jail’s mailing address for non-inmate mail is just the jail’s regular street address:

Lyon County Jail<
611 West Main Street
Marshall, MN 56258

Inmate Mailing Address

The Lyon County Jail inmate mailing addresses is the same as the physical address and the mailing address for non-inmate mail.

Lyon County Jail
C/O Inmate Name
611 West Main Street
Marshall, MN 56258

The Lyon County Jail will not allow inmates to mail envelopes from the jail if they have any writing or drawings on them other than the required mailing address.  All outgoing mail must also have the inmate’s name clearly written on the envelope.

At all local jail facilities, you can anticipate that all incoming and outgoing inmate mail will be opened and inspected before being given to the inmate.  The exception to this rule is legal mail, which may be inspected for contraband, but will not be opened outside of the inmate’s presence.  There are certain items that are contraband and should not be sent into the jail facility.  A non-exhaustive list of these items includes: weapons, over-the-counter medications, prescription medications, tobacco, food, drinks, violent material, nudity, sexually explicit or pornographic materials, information that could be used to plan a crime, gang-related material including images with gang signs, racist or bigoted materials, and information that could be used to plan a jail break.  In addition, illegal items, such as illegal drugs, are also prohibited.   Generally, inmates can receive photographs, but there may be limits on the sizes, number, and content of photographs.  Polaroid and Polaroid-type photographs are generally prohibited.  Contact the jail if you have any questions about the type of photographs an inmate may receive.

If you want to send published materials to the jail, be advised that they need to be sent directly from the publisher or an authorized distributor.  Materials must be new and they must be bound in softcover, not hardcover or spiral, bindings.  In addition, the content of the materials cannot violate other jail rules for content.

Phone Number

The main phone number for the Lyon County Jail is 507-929-6623.

If you know why you need to contact the jail, you might want to call the person in charge directly instead of calling the jail’s main number.  The Lyon County Jail Administrator is Brad Marks, and you can reach him at 507-929-6647 or via email at [email protected].  The Lyon County Jail Program Sergeant’s name is Mike Portinga and you can reach him at 507-929-6640 or via email at [email protected].  The Lyon County Jail Receptionist and Jail Records Clerk is Hillary Buysse and you can reach her at 507-929-6622 or via email at [email protected].

Lyon County Jail Roster

The Lyon County Jail maintains an inmate in custody list.  This list details all of the inmates currently incarcerated in Lyon County.  Inmates are listed in alphabetical order.  The details included in each inmate record include: the inmate’s first, last, and middle names; the date and time of booking; the charges against the detainee; the inmate’s status (sentenced or unsentenced); sentencing date; completion time; and the arresting agency.  In addition, each record contains a mugshot/ booking photo of the inmate.

Recent Arrests

The Lyon County Jail does not maintain a dedicated list of recent arrests.  However, it does maintain a custody list.  In this custody list, you can find the date of an inmate’s booking.  While there is no search feature that lets you search by date, you can use the CNTL + F “find” function to search by date.  This would let you easily find inmates booked on a particular date.

Mugshots

While the Lyon County Jail may not have a designated mugshot/ booking photo database, you can find mugshots and booking photos by looking at an inmate’s record on the Lyon County in-custody list. 

Jail Visitation

The Lyon County Jail has established rules that apply to all visits, personal and professional.  Violating these rules, whether the violation is committed by a visitor or an inmate, can results in the inmate losing his or her visiting privileges and/ or a visitor being prohibited from visiting the facility.  The rules are:

• No eating or drinking in in the visiting rooms;
• No use of cell phones within the facility while visiting;
• No passing material to an inmate (the exception is legal materials that have been inspected and approved by a Correctional Officer);
• No visiting while under the influence of drugs or alcohol;
• All visitors must submit to search procedures;
• All visitors must show ID;
• Visitors must wear appropriate attire;
• Visitors must behave appropriately, according to the Correctional staff’s guidelines; and
• Visitors must follow the rules of the facility

Professional visitors are not just attorneys.  Professional visitors include: clergy, law enforcement officers, attorneys, bail bondsmen, social workers, medical professionals, probation/ parole officers, and mental health professionals.  If you are visiting in a professional capacity, be prepared to provide proper identification.  Professional visitors are allowed every day from 8:00am to 11:30am, 1:00pm to 4:30pm, and 6:00pm to 9:00pm.

Personal visits include inmate visits with family and friends.  There are no visits on Monday.  However, visitation hours are the same Tuesday through Sunday.  Those visitation times are 8:00am to 11am and 1:00pm to 4:00pm.

To schedule a visit, contact Hillary Buysse at 507-929-6622.  You can sign up for a visit up to 24 hours in advance by phone or in person.  You do not have to pre-schedule visits, though this can ensure that you get to visit.  If the visitor is not present within 10 minutes of the beginning of the scheduled visitation time, that visit will be canceled.

Each inmate can get a maximum of two visits per day, with two visitors allowed at each visit.  The same visitor cannot visit twice in one day.  There is no switching of visitors.  One of the visitors may be a child, but the child must be accompanied by an adult visitor.  Visits are approximately 30 minutes in duration. Visitors cannot have been incarcerated within the last 60 days.  If you have been incarcerated within the last 60 days, but want to visit the jail facility, you can seek permission from the Jail Administrator before you visit.  

Inmate Phone Privileges

Inmate phone calls from Lyon County Jail are generally collect calls, though inmates may be able to set up inmate calling accounts for their numbers.  Inmates cannot get incoming phone calls.  However, Lyon County Jail does have a message line for inmates.  You can have friends, relatives, or your attorney call and leave messages for you at 507-532-8973.  This is not a private message line and it is the inmate’s responsibility to collect messages and return phone calls. 

Inmate Trust Accounts / Commissary

Like most jail facilities, the Lyon County Jail uses commissary, also known as canteen, as a means for inmates to purchase things that are not supplied by the jail.  Inmates purchase these items using money in their inmate trust accounts.

Lyon County Jail uses the Inmate Canteen website to process online credit card deposits to inmate canteen/ commissary accounts.  You can also make deposits to an inmate’s trust account in person by dropping off money for the inmate at any time.   You drop off money by going to the Lyon County Law Enforcement Center’s main entrance.  During business hours, you can proceed to the jail lobby.  After hours, you need to pick up the beige phone in the first lobby and tell them that you are there to make a deposit.  You can then deposit money into the kiosk that is located in the jail lobby.  The kiosk does not give receipts, so be sure to record the transaction number that the kiosk displays in case there are any problems with your deposit.

Bail Information

If you are posting bail between 8:00am and 4:30pm, then you need to go to the Court Administrator’s Office, which is located on the 3^rd floor of the courthouse.  You can post bail in Lyon County by going to the jail’s front lobby after normal business hours.  If you are posting bail after hours, you will need to ask to speak to the on duty Sergeant or Correctional Officer.  They will start the paperwork for the bail proceeding.  Bail cannot be paid by personal check, but can be paid by cashier’s check and money orders.  If the court has allowed the payment of a bail bond and not just cash bail, you can hire a bail bondsmen to pay the bail.  However, while a cash pay is refundable if an inmate appears at all scheduled hearings and otherwise complies with the conditions of bail, the fees you pay to a bail bondsmen are not refundable.

Inmates will be released around 8:00am on their scheduled release dates.  They can be picked up at the front lobby of the jail any time after they are released.

Conclusion

The Lyon County Jail is a local jail facility in Marshall, Minnesota that services Lyon County, Minnesota.  As a local jail facility, the Lyon County Jail plays a critical role in the criminal justice system and in the community of Lyon County.  The Lyon County Jail is aware that many newly arrested people are in a state of crises when they enter the jail facility.  For a variety of reasons, these people may be experiencing physical or mental crises, including mental health crises and addiction issues.  Recently arrested people may be angry, intoxicated, ill, or afraid; the jail must be prepared to house all of these people, and to do so in a way that not only ensures the safety and well-being of the person being arrested, but also the other people in the jail, the jail staff, and the community at large.  The jail must be able to process people and place them in appropriate housing, as well as assess whether an inmate’s condition requires an immediate physical or mental health intervention.

The primary purpose of a local jail is pre-trial detention.  Jails are different from prisons, which are designed as part of a punishment for a convicted offender.  For pre-trial detainees, they detainees are not being held as a punishment, but to ensure that the defendant appears at trial.  Defendants are still given the presumption of innocence, which means that the jail should strive to avoid punitive treatment of defendants whenever it is possible to do so.

If you have general questions about the Lyon County Jail facility, you can contact the jail at 507-929-6623.  If you have specific questions about the facility, want to schedule visitation, are curious about jail programming, or have questions about records requests, you can contact the individuals in charge of those aspects of the jail directly.  The Lyon County Jail Administrator is Brad Marks.  His number is 507-929-6647 and his email is [email protected].  The Lyon County Jail Program Sergeant’s name is Mike Portinga.  His number is 507-929-6640 and his email is  [email protected].  The Lyon County Jail Receptionist and Jail Records Clerk is Hillary Buysse.  Her number is 507-929-6622 and her email is [email protected].