The Detention Center
Curry County Jail
- Operated byCurry County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address29808 Colvin Street, Gold Beach, OR 97444 — behind the Curry County Courthouse; mail goes to 94235 Moore St, Ste 311, Gold Beach
- SizeMaximum capacity 35 adults in custody
- Built1972
- Why it fills earlyThe county says it is not uncommon for the jail to be 'at capacity' below 35 because people must be separated by no-contact orders, crime severity and gender
- Published rates (April 2025)Phone calls $0.12 a minute (all types); video visitation $0.25 a minute; standard tablet profile $0.07 a minute; messages from friends and family $0.50 each; photos $0.50 each
- VendorsViaPath / GTL for tablets, video visits and phone accounts; lobby kiosk for deposits, with a fee
Source: Curry County — Curry County Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓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
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1972
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds35 (maximum capacity in adults in custody)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff John Ward
- Runs the jailYes — the county's own jail page says that under Oregon law all sheriffs' offices must maintain a county jail, and the Curry County Jail sits under the Sheriff's Office
- How the office is filledElected countywide; Sheriff Ward first reached the office by appointment — the Curry County Board of Commissioners appointed him on August 26, 2014, effective October 1, 2014, after the previous sheriff resigned
- BackgroundHired by the Curry County Sheriff's Office in November 1990; served as patrol deputy, detective, patrol sergeant and lieutenant; holds the Executive Certificate from DPSST
- Office29808 Colvin Street, Gold Beach, OR 97444 (physical); 94235 Moore Street, Suite 311 (mailing) — 541-247-3242
- Litigation with the BoardCurry County publishes the full record of Board of Commissioners v. Ward, Curry County Circuit Court case 25CV02479, including the complaint, the sheriff's August 20, 2025 deposition transcript, Judge Stone's October 14, 2025 opinion letter and the November 4, 2025 final judgment
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Curry County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan races and are state judicial officers, not county officials. Curry County shares the 15th Judicial District with Coos County; two elected judges sit in Curry County and the district's presiding judge sits in Coquille. A judge, not the sheriff, sets security amounts and release conditions — the county's bail page says plainly that bail or security is 'set by the courts' and reprints the Trial Court Administration notice to anyone posting money for a defendant.
Curry County Circuit Court — 15th Judicial District, Curry County Courthouse, 29821 Ellensburg Ave, Gold Beach
- Cynthia L. Beaman, Circuit Court Judge
- Jesse Margolis, Circuit Court Judge
- Martin E. Stone — presiding judge of the 15th Judicial District, sitting in Coos County
Justice Court — none in Curry County
- Not applicable — the Oregon Judicial Department's registry lists no justice court in Curry County; the municipal courts at Brookings, Gold Beach and Port Orford are city courts, none of them a court of record
Still needed
- 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
- Curry County is the only jail in this group that publishes actual communication rates. The Phones & Tablets page carries a dated rate card headed 'Current Rates (April 2025)' covering phone, video visitation, tablet time, messages and photos.
- It also does something none of the others do: it cites ORS 169.681, states that the jail receives a commission from phone and tablet use, and publishes the accounting for the Jail Custody Services Fund (Inmate Welfare Fund) in the Corrections Division section of its document centre, where a March 2025 Telephone Revenue Report is posted.
- bond_info: the Bail Information page explains that bail must be paid in cash at the jail in exact change, that a person may self-bail from their trust account, that identification is required, that the victim of the alleged offence may not post, and reprints the court's notice on forfeiture and refunds.
- budget: the Sheriff's Office document centre publishes the approved 2024-2025 Sheriff's budget and revenue-and-expenditure reports through March 2025, so the corrections budget is public through the Sheriff's own pages.
- capacity: the 35-bed maximum is published, along with the county's explanation of why the effective capacity is lower; no daily population figure is published.
- prea: the county publishes a PREA policy statement and a reporting form, but no PREA audit and no annual PREA data.
- deaths, inspections and contracts: nothing published on any of the three.
- The Board of Commissioners v. Ward case file, published by the county itself at https://co.curry.or.us/government/board_of_commissioners/boc_vs_ward.php, is recorded here as a governance fact about the relationship between the county's governing body and its elected jailer. This record takes no position on the merits.
- state_inspection: Oregon has no state jail inspectorate. The Oregon State Sheriffs' Association publishes its voluntary OSSA Jail Standards and states that every Oregon sheriff has agreed to them and that each county jail is inspected on a bi-annual basis, but OSSA publishes the standards document only — no per-jail inspection result for this county was published on oregonsheriffs.org or on the county's own site (https://oregonsheriffs.org/jail-standards/).
- Curry County is governed by three elected Commissioners serving four-year terms — Jay (Jonathan) Trost, Lynn Coker and Patrick Hollinger — meeting at 94235 Moore Street, Gold Beach on the first Wednesday and third Tuesday of each month. The Board appointed the current sheriff in 2014 and later sued him; the county publishes the whole case file. No jail district and no dedicated jail tax were found, but the county does publish the Sheriff's Office budget and the jail's telephone commission accounting.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Curry 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 sheriff is on your ballot
The county clerk runs the election in Curry 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