The Detention Center
Klamath County Jail, also called the Klamath County Detention Center in the county's own media releases
- Operated byKlamath County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Division
- Jail address3201 Vandenberg Rd, Klamath Falls, OR 97603 - jail email jail@co.klamath.or.us
- When it was built1989 - 'The Klamath County Jail was built in 1989', the Corrections Division's own words
- Rated capacity150 beds - from the Sheriff's Office media release on jail staffing published in the county's document centre
- PopulationAbout 120 adults in custody per day before a staffing-driven reduction of roughly 20 per cent, per the same media release
- Operation24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with its own kitchen and laundry staffed by adults in custody, and indoor and outdoor recreation in each section
- Capital work funded in FY2027Jail roof $450,000, jail chiller $250,000, jail fire pump $65,000, I-CON jail plumbing controls $85,000 and jail administration carpet $75,000, from the county's own 2026-2027 budget book
- What was triedThe county site search returns no results for PREA, and nothing for a death in custody, an inspection result or a prisoner-housing contract rate
Source: Klamath County Sheriff's Office - Corrections Division · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓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 — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1989 - the Corrections Division page states 'The Klamath County Jail was built in 1989'
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found. The county's 2026-2027 budget book carries the jail inside the Sheriff's Office budget and funds jail capital items from county funds; no construction financing record is published
- Beds150 - 'The Klamath County Detention Center is a 150-bed facility', Sheriff's Office media release published by the county
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Shane L. Mitchell
- Runs the jailYes - the Sheriff's Office Corrections Division operates the Klamath County Jail
- How the office is filledElected. ORS 204.005 requires Oregon sheriffs to be elected; ORS 204.010 sets a four-year term
- In office sinceJanuary 2025 - he joined the Sheriff's Office as a reserve deputy in June 2000, was hired as a patrol deputy in August 2001 and promoted to sergeant in March 2019
- Size of the office90 sworn personnel across Patrol, Corrections and Civil, plus nearly 100 volunteers - the Sheriff's Office's own figures
- OfficeKlamath County Sheriff's Office, Klamath Falls, OR 97601 - 541-883-5130
- How this was verifiedNamed in the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association biography for Klamath County; the county's own Sheriff's Office page describes the office but does not print the Sheriff's name
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Klamath County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Oregon Circuit Court judges are elected in nonpartisan races to six-year terms and are state judicial officers, not county officials. A judge, not the sheriff, sets security amounts and release conditions; the sheriff's office only receives the money and releases the person. Justices of the Peace are the hybrid: a JP is both a state-authorised court judge and a county elected official, elected to a six-year term, with the county paying for the court. Klamath County is the whole of the 13th Judicial District and has five circuit judges. It also runs its own Justice Court at 6500 S Sixth Street, which handles county code and animal control violations and traffic citations written by the Sheriff's Office and by Merrill and Malin police.
Circuit Court - 13th Judicial District (Klamath County)
- Andrea M. Janney - Presiding Judge, position 1
- Sarah K. Dougherty - position 2
- Marci W. Adkisson - position 3
- Kelly N. Kritzer - position 4
- Stephen R. Hedlund - position 5
Klamath County Justice Court - 6500 S Sixth Street, Klamath Falls
- Karen Oakes, 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
- Klamath County is one of the more open counties in this group on money: it publishes a Quarterly Telephone Revenue / Inmate General Welfare Fund report for the jail at https://www.klamathcounty.org/1078/Quarterly-Telephone-Revenue-Report, with four quarters posted from July 2024 to June 2025. That is revenue, not rates, so it does not satisfy the fees check.
- fees: the county's own phone page says adults in custody may call collect, buy phone time through commissary, or have family fund an account at inmatesales.com, and that 'There is a monitory charge for video visitation' - but no per-minute or per-item rate is published, so this is recorded 'no'.
- budget: the FY2026-2027 digital budget book at https://www.klamathcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/39394/2026-2027-Digital-Budget-Book gives Total Sheriff of $18,562,837 approved for FY2027 against $18,223,166 for FY2026, and separately funds jail capital items. It also records that Justice Reinvestment money that used to pay for four corrections officers now pays for three, and that Community Corrections' transfer to the jail's 'C pod' falls from $152,654 in FY2026 to $29,200 in FY2027.
- capacity: the bed count and the average daily population come from a Sheriff's Office media release in the county's document centre about a staffing shortage, not from a routine capacity report. There is no current population dashboard.
- deaths, prea, inspections: searched on the county's own site search. 'PREA' returns no results at all. Nothing is published about a death in custody, an inspection result or an accreditation.
- contracts: the county publishes nothing about holding other agencies' prisoners for a fee. The Corrections Division page does say the jail accepts bail for people held 'on charges for other agencies', which implies outside holds, but no agreement or rate is posted.
- state_inspection: Oregon has no published state jail inspection result. The Oregon State Sheriffs' Association runs the inspection programme and publishes its standards at https://oregonsheriffs.org/jail-standards/ but no per-jail finding.
- Klamath County is governed by a three-member Board of County Commissioners, elected in nonpartisan countywide races to four-year terms, with the chair appointed by the board for a one-year rotating term. Members are Chair Kelley Minty (position 2), Vice-Chair Derrick DeGroot (position 3) and Commissioner Andy Nichols (position 1). The board holds a Weekly Business Meeting at 1:00pm every Tuesday and takes virtual public comment by pre-registration. Each commissioner carries liaison assignments to county departments, so the jail has a named commissioner contact, but the board's authority over it is collective.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Klamath 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 Klamath 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