Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she and her staff will be working hard to secure funding during the current legislative session.

After Hennepin County saw a 22% jump in juvenile crime last year, Sheriff Witt said she would like financial assistance from the state to help steer kids away from trouble and keep them in school as well.

“You know, we’ve had schools that have reached out. There’s one school in particular, in Minneapolis, where our deputies have been in there for 10 different classes,” Witt said. “We are starting to see our educators say, ‘We need help. We need to talk about these things.'”

Witt said she would like to receive state help to purchase new technology to make the jail safer for inmates and corrections officers.

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“Because, of course, what we want is we want everybody to be safe. We want the fastest and best responses so that we can increase people’s safety, people’s health within our facility,” Witt said.