County Adopts Updated Jail Capacity Management Plan; Forced-release tiers, scoring explained

The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted to approve an updated capacity management plan from the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office that defines how the county would respond if jail population reaches a legal emergency threshold.

Sheriff Nicole Morrissey O'Donnell and her corrections leadership presented the plan and the data driving it: a funded jail capacity of 1,130 beds, a recent count of about 1,001 adults in custody (about 88.6% of funded capacity on a March snapshot) and rising trends in pretrial bookings and length of stay. The sheriff described a process required under Oregon law for emergency population-release plans and said the update reflects changes since the last formal plan.

Chief Deputy Steve Reardon and Planning and Research Manager Kevin Morelli described the revised forced-release mechanism. Under the new plan, adults in custody who are eligible for emergency release are limited to pretrial detainees and people post-arraignment (those who have seen a judge). Foundational exclusions remove individuals with holds from other jurisdictions, those charged under the state's Measure 11 mandatory sentencing crimes, person-to-person crimes and domestic-violence charges. After exclusions, remaining people are placed in one of three release tiers:

- Tier 1: people charged only with misdemeanors or violations (no person crimes, no firearms/weapons charges). - Tier 2: selected non-person property felonies (class A, B, C) without firearms or weapons. - Tier 3: remaining eligible charges, primarily non-person firearms and weapons charges not involving a person or domestic violence.

Within each tier the sheriff's office proposed using the Department of Community Justice's Public Safety Assessment (PSA) actuarial tool to rank individuals by the three PSA outcomes. The release order would start with those who have the lowest "new criminal arrest" score; ties would be broken by lowest "failure to appear" score, then by shortest length of stay.

Sheriff Morrissey O'Donnell described the plan as a tool to prioritize community safety; she stressed that any forced release would reflect system failures and urged continued investment in corrections staffing and services. Kevin Morelli presented data showing growth in bookings since 2023, increased pretrial populations, and a rise in people held under multi-jurisdictional holds.

District Attorney Nathan Vasquez said his office is a partner in the process and remained available to answer legal questions. Members of the public including business owner Karen Girey and community member Lightning urged the board to prioritize opening more jail beds and to ensure clear accountability when early releases occur.

Board members pressed the sheriff and staff on several points: the role and limits of the PSA tool; how the county's limited booking policy (used temporarily during spikes) interacts with the plan; what tiers would mean in practice (for example, that Tier 2 could include non-person felonies such as higher-level theft or drug-related felonies without firearms); and the operational impacts of restricted booking on community safety and traffic enforcement.

Commissioners emphasized the plan is required by ORS and intended as an emergency response; many said the preferred outcome is to avoid any forced releases by funding adequate staffing, community corrections, and housing resources. Commissioner remarks cited past forced-release events in the pre-COVID period as context for urgency.

On roll-call the board approved the updated capacity management plan (R2). The sheriff said the plan will be finalized with partners, with implementation details, IT updates, and further partner briefings in the coming weeks.