The Detention Center
Malheur County Correctional Facility
- Operated byMalheur County Sheriff's Office
- Jail locationAdjacent to and east of the Malheur County Courthouse in Vale; the Sheriff's Office address is 151 'B' St. West, Vale, OR 97918. Jail visiting line 541-473-5528
- The first jailCommissioned on Thursday 18 April 1887 and completed on or about 8 July 1887 - a two-cell jail built by the Pauly Jail Building and Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, at an original cost of five thousand dollars, to be paid in gold coin
- The current jailBuilt close to the original site and connected to the jail it replaced in 1996; capable of holding 104 prisoners; cost four million dollars to complete
- StaffingTwenty-two deputies and support staff under Lt. Rachel Reyna - three sergeants, twelve deputies, five law technicians and a food service director, with two full-time nurses and a contracted physician weekly
- Bail'Bail is 10 percent of the full security amount listed on the charges. The court will retain 15 percent, up to $200, of the deposit, for court costs, fines and restitution.' Bail is accepted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in cash only
- Phones and moneyCollect and prepaid calls through Telmate only, in the day room from 7am to 11pm. Money for trust and phone accounts goes through the Telmate kiosk in the front lobby; the jail no longer accepts cash or money orders for commissary
- What was triedThe county jail page, the Sheriff's Office jail division page, the Sheriff's FAQ, the county Administration budgets and audits page and the county court pages were all read. No in-custody roster, PREA result, inspection result, death in custody or prisoner-housing contract is published
Source: Malheur County - 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 builtThe current jail replaced its predecessor in 1996 and is connected to it. The county's first jail was commissioned 18 April 1887 and completed about 8 July 1887
- Original costFour million dollars for the current jail. The 1887 two-cell jail cost five thousand dollars, payable in gold coin
- Paid for byCounty funds. The adopted county budget carries fund 206-JAIL, with a general fund transfer in from Community Corrections of $656,502 budgeted for 2026-2027 and jail commissary revenue of $5,000, plus jail tech equipment of $75,000 and jail kitchen equipment of $40,000
- Beds104 - 'The current jail is capable of holding 104 prisoners', the Sheriff's Office's own words
Since then
- The current jail was built close to the original 1887 site and is physically connected to the jail it replaced in 1996
The Sheriff
Sheriff Travis Johnson
- Runs the jailYes - the Sheriff's Office runs the Malheur County Correctional Facility, commanded by Lt. Rachel Reyna
- How the office is filledElected. ORS 204.005 requires Oregon sheriffs to be elected; ORS 204.010 sets a four-year term. Johnson first reached the office by appointment: he was appointed by the Malheur County Court and sworn in on 4 April 2023 to fill a vacancy
- In office sinceApril 2023, as the county's 17th sheriff. He joined the Sheriff's Office in 2009 and was promoted from deputy to undersheriff in 2012
- RecognitionAwarded the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association President's Award in 2016 for holding down the office during the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge takeover
- Office151 'B' St. West, Vale, OR 97918 - the Sheriff's Office is in the jail facility next to the county courthouse. tjohnson@malheurco.org
- A discrepancy worth notingThe Sheriff's Office jail page still says the jail is 'under the direction of the sixteenth Sheriff of the County, Sheriff Brian E. Wolfe'. The same site's About Us page says Travis Johnson became the 17th sheriff in April 2023. The jail page text has not been updated
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Malheur 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. Malheur County is the whole of the 9th Judicial District and has two circuit judges. It also runs a Justice Court whose Justice of the Peace doubles as municipal judge for Ontario and Nyssa, and a Mental Health Court. Note that Malheur's County Judge is not a judicial officer for these purposes: he chairs the County Court, the county's governing body, and holds probate jurisdiction, but the County Court 'is not a court of law, and does not preside over trials'.
Circuit Court - 9th Judicial District (Malheur County)
- Lung S. Hung - Presiding Judge, position 2
- Erin K. Landis - position 1
Malheur County Justice Court
- Margie Mahony, Justice of the Peace - also the Municipal Court Judge for the cities of Ontario and Nyssa
- 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
- Malheur is the only county in this group that publishes what its jail cost to build, and it publishes it twice - four million dollars for the current 104-bed facility, and five thousand dollars in gold coin for the two-cell jail the Pauly Jail Building and Manufacturing Co. put up in 1887.
- capacity is recorded 'no' on the strict test: the bed count of 104 is published, but no population figure - average daily or point in time - appears anywhere on the county or Sheriff's Office sites.
- bond_info: the county jail page publishes the whole arithmetic of bail - ten per cent of the security amount, the court retaining fifteen per cent up to $200, cash only, accepted around the clock, and refunds applied for to the court and not the jail. There is also a bail FAQ on the Sheriff's Office site.
- fees: the county explains that money for trust and phone accounts goes through the Telmate kiosk and that calls are collect or prepaid through Telmate, but publishes no per-minute or per-item price.
- budget: the county publishes adopted budgets back to 2015-16 and independent audit reports for years ended June 2015 through June 2025 at the Administration page. The 2026-2027 adopted budget is at https://www.malheurco.org/wp-content/uploads/Departments/Admin/Budget/Approved/County-Adopted-Budget-6-22.pdf and carries fund 206-JAIL as a separate fund.
- roster, deaths, prea, inspections, contracts: nothing published.
- The Sheriff's Office jail page carries stale text naming a former sheriff as the jail's director. The name of the sitting sheriff is taken from the same site's About Us page and confirmed by the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association.
- 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.
- Malheur County is governed by a County Court, not a Board of Commissioners: a full-time County Judge who chairs a three-person commission, and two commissioners at two-fifths time. The County Judge is elected to a six-year term and the commissioners to four-year terms; the Judge may preside over probate matters and perform weddings. Members are County Judge Dan Joyce and Commissioners Ron Jacobs and Jim Mendiola. Regular meetings are held each Wednesday. The County Court appointed the present Sheriff to fill the vacancy in 2023, so the body that oversees the jail also chose its jailer.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Malheur 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 Malheur 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