Washington County Sheriff outlines jail repairs, pretrial program expansion and public-safety partnerships

The Washington County Sheriff told Sherwood City Council on Jan. 7 that the county is undertaking significant jail facility work, expanding pretrial monitoring with a new grant and continuing interagency public-safety programs across the county.

"Our mission, is conserving the peace through values driven service," the Washington County Sheriff said, outlining the office's statutory duties, which include running the county jail, search-and-rescue, civil process, court security and concealed handgun licensing. The sheriff said the county jail opened in 1998 and has received limited capital investment since; facility upgrades including fire alarm panels, boilers and cooling systems are underway with an expected completion date in 2026.

The sheriff said the county had reduced usable jail capacity from 572 beds to 388 beds during a recent staffing shortage and saw more than 14,000 bookings in 2023. To address pretrial monitoring, he said, "We just received a grant, of $750,000 over the course of 3 years to expand our pretrial release grama," and described plans to bring electronic-monitoring oversight in-house so monitoring is available 24/7 rather than limited to vendor daytime hours.

John Cook, undersheriff, described county enforcement and crisis-response partnerships. "These teams respond to over 3,000 calls for service every year," Cook said of the mental-health response teams, which pair clinicians with deputies. The office currently fields eight such teams that operate mainly during daytime and evening hours; Cook said doubling that number would be needed for 24-hour coverage.

The sheriff also described the Westside Interagency Narcotics Team and large seizures, saying the task force had seized "1.4 metric tons of liquid heroin" in a Washington County case and continues to remove fentanyl pills from circulation. Deputies and local officers carry and deploy naloxone in overdose responses, and the sheriff said Narcan deployments have trended down as community access to naloxone has increased.

Other topics covered included tactical teams (SWAT, hostage negotiation, remotely operated vehicles) that collectively involve interagency staffing of roughly 100 personnel and respond to more than 100 calls per year, use of drones and robots for officer safety and search-and-rescue, and a county-conducted jail capacity study by Matrix Consulting. The sheriff described efforts to prioritize medical and behavioral-health programming in custody (GED, parenting, addiction treatment) and said the county will be under construction at the jail through 2025.

Funding sources mentioned for narcotics and task-force work include seizure funds, federal HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) monies and other federal grants; the sheriff said some opioid settlement funds are expected but did not specify amounts or allocations. He also said a public-safety local option levy will be on the ballot in November to fund multiple services across the county and that county staff are currently modeling revenue needs.

Council members asked about release criteria, staffing impacts and whether Family Justice Center staff would be housed in new facilities; the sheriff and undersheriff said judges set release criteria, the in-house monitoring will be carried out by deputies already on duty in the jail, and staff currently assigned to the Family Justice Center will continue to be supported.

The sheriff encouraged continued interagency collaboration and said the office will follow up with county reports and updates on the capacity study and construction timeline.