The Detention Center
Harney County Jail
- Operated byHarney County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address485 N Court Ave, Burns, OR 97720 — 541-573-6056
- Jail commanderLieutenant Aaron Todd
- OriginThe county's own history says that in 1962 Harney County and the City of Burns entered into a contract to construct and operate the Harney County Jail, which was then staffed by a husband-and-wife team who lived at the facility and supervised prisoners around the clock; their living quarters are now the Sheriff's Office and the 911 dispatch centre
- A replacement is being procuredThe county issued a Jail Facility Request for Qualifications in January 2025 for a progressive design-build of a new jail in Burns
- Size of the proposed jailThe RFQ asks for minimum secure housing with 'a to be determined bed count' and elsewhere describes a 30-50 bed count, with a mental health housing unit, recreation area and assessment rooms
- Money for the proposed jail'The Direct Construction Cost Budget is approximately $8,000,000.00 in hand, while pursuing additional funding' — the RFQ's own words
- Beds in the current jailNot found — no bed count for the existing facility is published by the county
- No rosterThe county has withdrawn its roster: 'Due to the new jail management system capabilities, Harney County sheriff's office will not be providing a jail roster'
- Victim notificationThe county explains the October 2023 statewide move from VINE to VISOR and links registration
Source: Harney County Sheriff's Office — Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗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
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found — the county publishes only that a 1962 contract between Harney County and the City of Burns provided for the jail's construction and operation, not a completion date for the present building
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found for the existing jail. For the proposed replacement the county states approximately $8,000,000 of direct construction cost budget is 'in hand, while pursuing additional funding'
- BedsNot found for the existing jail. The proposed replacement is described as 30-50 beds
Since then
- A new jail facility in Burns is being procured: the county issued a Jail Facility Request for Qualifications in January 2025 for a two-phase progressive design-build, with a guaranteed maximum price agreement to follow in Phase 2. Documents at https://harneycountyor.gov/jail-2/ , RFQ at http://harneycountyor.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Jail-Facility-RFQ.pdf
The Sheriff
Sheriff Daniel W. Jenkins
- Runs the jailYes — the Harney County Jail is a division of the Sheriff's Office under a Jail Commander, Lieutenant Aaron Todd
- How the office is filledElected countywide in a nonpartisan race; he first reached the office by appointment
- How he came to officeAppointed and sworn in on 2 January 2020 as interim sheriff to complete the remainder of Sheriff Dave Ward's term, having been a patrol deputy since 2015. The county states he has since been elected twice and began his second elected term in 2025
- BackgroundGraduated Crane Union High School in 1993, four years in the United States Marine Corps as a light armored vehicle crewman, ranch work in Harney County, Wyoming and Nevada, Idaho Police Academy in 2003, Caldwell City Police, then Harney County Sheriff's Office from July 2004 — leaving for ranch work in 2008 and returning in September 2014 as a corrections deputy
- Office485 N Court Avenue #6, Burns, Oregon 97720 — 541-573-6156
- How this was verifiedNamed on the county's own Sheriff's Office page with a biography, and in the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association biography
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Harney County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan statewide-scheduled races and are state judicial officers, not county officials. Justices of the Peace are unusual: a JP is both a state court judge and a county elected official, elected to a six-year term, and the county pays for the court. A judge, not the sheriff, sets security amounts and release conditions; the sheriff's office only receives the money and releases the person. Harney was carved out of the southern two-thirds of Grant County in February 1889 because the county seat at Canyon City was several days away by horse; the two counties now share the 24th Judicial District and its single elected circuit judge. The county's own jail page also publishes an explanation of Senate Bill 48 and the Chief Justice's pretrial release guidelines, which is a fair account of who actually decides release.
Circuit Court — 24th Judicial District (Grant and Harney counties)
- Robert S. Raschio — Presiding Judge; the 24th Judicial District has one elected circuit judge for both counties
Harney County Justice Court
- Riley Richardson, 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
- roster: recorded 'no', and this is a withdrawal rather than an absence. The county keeps a Jail Roster page in its navigation but the page now carries only a notice that the Sheriff's Office will not be providing a roster because of the capabilities of its new jail management system. A roster link on the Jail Project page still points at https://harneycountyor.gov/PDF_Files/JailRosters/roster/InmateRoster.html
- budget: the county publishes the approved budget in full. The FY2026-27 approved budget contains a Jail department with named line items — corrections deputies, a jail commander post at $77,367, medical evaluation, jail health services, a dietary contract, prisoner transport and building repair — totalling $1,153,116 in approved expenditures, against $1,132,054 budgeted for 2025-26. Document at https://harneycountyor.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Fy-26-27-Approved-Budget-05-1-26.pdf
- bond_info: the Bail Procedures page is one of the fuller ones in this group. It explains that Oregon courts normally accept 10% of the bail amount, that out-of-state warrants are treated as full bail until confirmed, that security should be posted with the state court where possible, what happens after hours, what identification is required, which forms of payment are accepted and refused, that payment is made out to the Harney County Inmate Trust, and that cash of $10,000 or more requires IRS Form 8300.
- capacity: no bed count and no daily population are published for the existing jail. The only capacity figure the county publishes anywhere is the 30-50 bed range for the jail it wants to build.
- fees: the county links a commissary funds portal and a bail payment portal, both run by IntelliPay, and notes that a convenience or transaction fee may apply at the lobby kiosk, but publishes no phone, video-visit or commissary rate.
- prea, inspections, deaths and contracts: nothing published by the county on any of the four.
- The county's website sits behind a Sucuri JavaScript challenge that ordinary automated requests fail. The challenge was solved and every page recorded here was read directly.
- state_inspection: Oregon has no state jail inspectorate; the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association publishes voluntary jail standards at https://oregonsheriffs.org/jail-standards/ but no per-jail inspection result for Harney County was found on that site or on the county's own.
- Harney County is governed by a County Court of three elected officials — County Judge Bill Hart and Commissioners Rob Frank (Position 1) and Patty Dorroh (Position 2). The Court meets on the first and third Wednesdays at 9:30 am, opening with the paying of bills. Agendas, minutes and an archive are hosted on TownCloud and meetings are recorded to the county's YouTube channel. The county publishes a public meetings law grievance process naming the executive assistant who receives complaints.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Harney 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 Harney 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