The Detention Center
Linn County Jail
- Operated byLinn County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Division
- Jail address1115 Jackson St. SE, Albany, OR 97322 - jail line 541-967-3901. The Civil Division and Compensatory Service are separately at 3008 Ferry Street SW, Albany, OR 97321
- PopulationAverage daily population 168 in calendar year 2023
- Throughput3,771 offenders processed in 2023, 'charged with virtually every conceivable crime, ranging from misdemeanors at one end of the scale to aggravated murder at the other'
- Who it holdsPre-trial and sentenced adults in custody
- Phone and tablet pricesPhone calls charged at 21 cents a minute, capped at 11 cents a minute from 1 April 2026 under new FCC rate caps; video visitation 25 cents a minute falling to 19 cents; paid tablet content 7 cents a minute; messages and photo transfers rising to 50 cents each. Calls time out after 20 minutes
- Bail rulesChanged on 7 April 2026: the jail now accepts bail only as a certified cashier's cheque made out to the court that set the bail, never to the jail, and only outside courthouse hours for Circuit Court and Albany Municipal Court matters
- What was triedThe county's general website, www.linncountyor.gov, could not be read for this record - every page request returns a Cloudflare 403 challenge, so the county budget, the Board of Commissioners roster and the board's agendas and minutes could not be sourced. Everything here comes from the Sheriff's Office's own official site
Source: Linn County Sheriff's Office - Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
4/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found - the county budget could not be reached
- BedsNot found. The Sheriff's Office publishes an average daily population of 168 for 2023 but no rated bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Michelle Duncan
- Runs the jailYes - 'One of the responsibilities of the Sheriff's Office that is mandated by Oregon Law is the responsibility for maintaining a county jail', and the Corrections Division runs it
- How the office is filledElected. ORS 204.005 requires Oregon sheriffs to be elected; ORS 204.010 sets a four-year term
- In office sinceAppointed the 41st Sheriff of Linn County on 1 January 2022 to finish Sheriff Jim Yon's term after his retirement, then elected later that year
- CareerBegan in 1996 as a corrections officer at the Oregon State Penitentiary, hired by Linn County in 1997 as resident deputy for Mill City, then detective, patrol sergeant, patrol lieutenant, patrol captain and undersheriff
- StandingTreasurer on the executive board of the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association and a member of the Northwest Accreditation Alliance Board and the DPSST Police Policy Committee
- OfficeLinn County Sheriff's Office and Jail, 1115 Jackson St. SE, Albany, OR 97322 - 541-967-3950, jail 541-967-3901
- How this was verifiedNamed on the Sheriff's Office's own site and in the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association biography for Linn County
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Linn 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. Linn County is the whole of the 23rd Judicial District and has five circuit judges. Linn is the one court in this group that publishes its own judge list on its OJD page. The county also has Justice Courts - the jail takes bail on Linn Justice Court warrants at any hour - but no justice of the peace could be named, because the county's general website was unreachable.
Circuit Court - 23rd Judicial District (Linn County)
- Thomas A. McHill - Presiding Judge, position 5
- Michael B. Wynhausen - position 1
- Keith B. Stein - position 2
- Rachel Kittson-MaQatish - position 3
- Brendan J. Kane - position 4
Linn County Justice Courts
- Not found - the Sheriff's Office bail page confirms Linn Justice Courts exist and take bail through the jail, but no judge is named on any page reachable for this record
- 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
Notes on the record
- The single most important thing about this county's record: the Linn County general website, www.linncountyor.gov, was unreachable throughout this research. Every page returns a Cloudflare 403 challenge, the sitemap is blocked, and the Internet Archive holds no snapshot. Only robots.txt responds. The ten checks below are therefore judged on what the Linn County Sheriff's Office publishes at its own official site, linnsheriff.org, and four checks that a county budget page would normally answer - capacity, budget, deaths, contracts - could not be tested against the county's own general site.
- fees: Linn publishes real prices, and publishes the change. Its adult in custody telephone page states the current rates and the new FCC-mandated caps taking effect 1 April 2026 - phone from 21 to 11 cents a minute, video visits from 25 to 19 cents a minute, tablet paid content steady at 7 cents a minute, and messages and photo transfers doubling to 50 cents each.
- bond_info: the bail page is unusually specific and was rewritten effective 7 April 2026. The jail will now accept only a certified cashier's cheque, made payable to the court that set the bail - 'State of Oregon' for Linn County Circuit Court, 'Albany Municipal Court' for that court, 'Linn County Justice Court' for justice court warrants - and for Circuit and Municipal Court matters only after courthouse hours, at weekends and on federal holidays.
- capacity: the jail history page gives the average daily population for 2023, 168, and the number of offenders processed that year, 3,771, but no bed count, so the check fails on the beds half.
- prea, inspections, deaths, contracts: nothing published on the Sheriff's Office site.
- 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.
- Linn County is governed by a three-member Board of Commissioners. Their names, the board page and the agendas and minutes could not be recorded here: the county's general website at www.linncountyor.gov returns a Cloudflare 403 challenge to every page request made for this research, and no archived copy exists. That is recorded as a finding rather than guessed at. The Sheriff's Office runs a separate site, linnsheriff.org, which carries no link to the county board.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Linn 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 Linn 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