The Detention Center
Benton County Jail
- Operated byBenton County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address190 NW 4th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330 — 541-766-6866, next to the historic Benton County Courthouse
- Year built1976
- SizeAbout 8,000 square feet
- Original capacity27 adults in custody
- Current beds40 after remodelling, but the jail reaches practical capacity at an average of 28 to 34 because of statutory separation requirements
- Smallest per capitaThe Sheriff's Office states it is the smallest jail per capita of any county in Oregon
- Rented bedsThe Sheriff's Office rents 40 jail beds in other counties — currently Polk County for pretrial adults in custody and Clatsop County for sentenced adults in custody
- Cost of the rental programmeFunded by a public option levy first approved by voters in 2000 and renewed most recently in 2021; the county states taxpayers pay nearly $1 million a year for it
- Transports792 adults in custody moved over 33,393 miles in 2023; 731 over 31,799 miles in 2024
- Capacity managementRenting beds, early release of adults in custody, and temporarily closing the jail to new arrestees
- Replacement facilityTwo jail measures have failed — a November 2015 bond and Measure 2-140 at the May 16, 2023 special election; the county has committed to begin saving for a new correctional facility, and in 2026 brought in outside justice-system consultants
- Original costNot found — checked the Jail, Jail Facts, Jail Bed Rentals and Community Safety & Justice Projects pages and the Board's Safety & Justice Projects page
Source: Benton County Sheriff's Office — Jail Facts · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1976
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found for the original building. The jail bed rental programme is funded by a public option levy first approved in 2000 and renewed in 2021, costing county taxpayers nearly $1 million a year.
- Beds40 (originally 27), but the jail reaches capacity at an average of 28 to 34 because men and women, and people classified by offence or behavioural health need, must be housed separately.
Since then
- Remodelling raised capacity from the original 27 beds to 40; no dated expansion figures are published.
- Two replacement measures failed: a November 2015 bond and Measure 2-140 on May 16, 2023.
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jef Van Arsdall
- Runs the jailYes — ORS 169.320; the Sheriff's Office describes itself as a full-service agency responsible for jail operations
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- Main officeLaw Enforcement Building, 180 NW 5th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330 — 541-766-6858
- Other responsibilitiesLaw enforcement, emergency management, search and rescue, court enforcement services, and parole and probation
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Benton County Sheriff's Office — About · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan races and are state judicial officers, not county officials. A judge sets security amounts and release conditions; in Benton County the sheriff's early-release decisions under the jail's capacity limits happen after that, and are an administrative act, not a bail decision. The Oregon Judicial Department's Benton County page does not name a presiding judge for the 21st Judicial District, so none is recorded here.
Benton County Circuit Court — 21st Judicial District, Benton County Courthouse, 120 NW 4th Street, Corvallis
- Joan E. Demarest
- Matthew J. Donohue
- Keri J. Smith
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- capacity: the Sheriff's Office publishes bed counts and an operational capacity range but no daily population figure, so this check fails on the second half. The Adult in Custody report is a roster, updated roughly every four hours, not a population count.
- contracts: marked no, and the direction is reversed here — Benton County rents beds from Polk and Clatsop counties rather than holding other agencies' prisoners, and no per-day rate is published for either arrangement.
- roster: the Adult in Custody report covers people held at the Benton County Jail and at the rental bed contract locations; photographs were removed from the roster to comply with HB 3273 effective January 1, 2022.
- deaths: nothing about a death in custody is published on the Sheriff's Office or county sites.
- bond_info: the Contact an Adult in Custody page covers mail, phone, visits and medical, but there is no page explaining how to post a security amount.
- fees: no commissary, phone or video visit rate is published.
- The county's own framing is unusually candid: it publishes that some people who would otherwise be held are released because there is no bed for them.
- Three commissioners elected countywide, acting as executives, legislators and an official panel: Nancy Wyse, Pat Malone and Gabe Shepherd, at the Kalapuya Building, 4500 SW Research Way, Corvallis. The Board adopts the county's biennial budget and directs the County Administrator. There is no jail district; the jail bed rental programme is paid for by a voter-approved public option levy, most recently renewed in 2021.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Benton County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
The county clerk runs the election in Benton County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered