The Detention Center
Clackamas County Jail
- Operated byClackamas County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address2206 Kaen Road, Oregon City, OR 97045 — 503-722-6777, jailinfo@clackamas.us
- Year built1958
- BedsDescribed by the Sheriff's Office as a 465-bed facility; the Forced Release Dashboard page states a housing capacity of 483 beds; the 2024 grand jury was told it is a funded 491-bed facility operating at 398 beds while newly hired staff are trained
- Who it holdsPeople awaiting trial or serving sentences of less than 365 days
- AccreditationsThree from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care — health services, mental health, and opioid treatment programmes in correctional facilities
- Forced releaseA population management tool under ORS 169.044 and 169.046 and a Board-approved Capacity Management Plan; the Sheriff's Office publishes a dashboard of forced releases by month
- Other correctional facilitiesCourthouse correctional holding cells, the Clackamas Substance Abuse Program, and the Clackamas County Transitional Center
- JuvenilesClackamas County has no juvenile correctional facility; youth ordered detained are sent to Marion County
- ReplacementThe 2024 grand jury reported the county is in year three of a stated ten-year plan for a new jail of about 900 beds, with construction hoped for by 2030 and no money in the budget for it; the plan has twice been postponed for the new courthouse and the light rail project
- Original cost / fundingNot found — checked the Sheriff's Office jail, budget and transparency pages, the county budget pages and the grand jury report
Source: Clackamas County Sheriff's Office — Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✓Deaths in custody
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✓Independent inspection
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1958
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds465 on the Sheriff's Office jail page; 483 housing capacity on the Forced Release Dashboard page; a funded 491 beds operating at 398 according to the 2024 grand jury.
Since then
- None published. A replacement jail of roughly 900 beds is in a ten-year plan with a construction goal of 2030 and no identified funding.
The Sheriff
Sheriff James Rhodes
- Runs the jailYes — ORS 169.320; the Clackamas County Jail is operated by the Sheriff's Office
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- PredecessorAngela Brandenburg was Sheriff when the 2024 grand jury inspected the jail
- Other divisionsPatrol, investigations, civil, marine patrol, search and rescue, parole and probation, and the Clackamas Substance Abuse Program
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Clackamas County — Board of County Commissioners (county elected officials list) · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan races and are state judicial officers, not county officials. Clackamas is one of the Oregon counties that also has a Justice Court; the Justice of the Peace is elected and is listed by the county among its elected officials. A judge sets security amounts; the Sheriff's Office publishes the mechanics of posting and notes that the court retains 15% of a posted security amount. The Oregon Judicial Department's Clackamas page names the presiding judge but does not list the full bench, and the court's Contact Us page hides its judge roster behind a script, so only the presiding judge is recorded here.
Clackamas County Circuit Court — 5th Judicial District, Clackamas County Courthouse, 1000 Courthouse Road, Oregon City
- Ann M. Lininger, Presiding Judge
Clackamas County Justice Court
- Kathleen Rastetter, Justice of the Peace
- 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
- inspections: Oregon requires a grand jury to inquire once a year into the condition and management of every correctional facility in the county under ORS 132.440, and Clackamas County publishes the resulting report. The 2024 report inspected the jail, the courthouse holding cells, the Clackamas Substance Abuse Program and the Transitional Center, and recorded that the kitchen floor had been identified as a county health violation and was awaiting replacement.
- deaths: the District Attorney's Office published a news release on 24 February 2026 identifying a person who died in the jail's custody.
- prea: marked no. The Sheriff's Office publishes a PREA page, a sexual misconduct policy and a Clackamas County 2024 PREA Annual Report (https://cdn.myocv.com/ocvapps/a110597045/files/Clacakams%20County%20PREA%202024%20Annual%20Report.pdf), but an annual report is not an audit result, and no PREA audit report is posted.
- capacity: three different bed figures are published by the county and none is paired with a daily population count, so the check fails. The Sheriff's Office Forced Release Dashboard (https://app.powerbigov.us/view?r=eyJrIjoiNTVlZDViMWQtOTcxNC00NDcwLTgzMzYtZjk4OTQ5N2I4NDc0IiwidCI6IjExYTVmMzg1LWUyNTEtNGJmMS1iMjY2LTU5N2U3ODI4ODJhMCJ9) reports forced releases by month.
- roster: the Sheriff's Office site is a JavaScript application, so the roster is cited at the live Adults in Custody feed it reads from, which returns current bookings with charges and security amounts. Note that in an earlier version of that site the Adults in Custody page was a 'Coming Soon' placeholder; the live feed is current as of this research.
- bond_info: the Sheriff's Office 'Bail and Release' page explains that security may be posted 24 hours a day at the jail lobby with photo ID and a Citizen Bail form, in exact cash only, that the court retains 15% of the posted amount, and how recognizance release works. Because the site is a JavaScript application the page content was read at https://cdn.myocv.com/ocvapps/a110597045/public/page_bailAndRelease.json, and the check cites the Sheriff's Office site itself.
- fees: the Deposit Funds and Telephone pages explain Telmate kiosks, internet and telephone deposits and note that money transfer agents charge a service fee the Sheriff's Office does not receive, but no per-minute or commissary price is published.
- contracts: no agreement to hold another agency's prisoners, and no rate, is published.
- The Sheriff's Office maintains a Transparency page collecting policies through PowerDMS, accreditation reports, call activity and reported crime dashboards, and finance and staffing reports.
- A five-member Board of County Commissioners elected to four-year terms: Chair Craig Roberts, and Commissioners Diana Helm, Paul Savas, Martha Schrader and Ben West. The Board sets policy, adopts departmental budgets and can refer countywide measures. The county has no jail district; the 2024 grand jury recorded the Board's commitment not to raise taxes to fund a replacement jail.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clackamas 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 Clackamas 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