The Detention Center
Marion County Jail (MCJ)
- Operated byMarion County Sheriff's Office, Institutions Division
- Jail address4000 Aumsville Hwy SE, Salem, OR 97317 - jail 503-588-8595. The Marion County Circuit Court Annex is at the same address, and the jail bail window is there too
- SizeA 151,000 square foot structure currently housing 400 adults in custody
- DesignA 'direct supervision' jail, with deputies assigned inside the housing units and expanded privileges tied to behaviour
- ThroughputMCJ books approximately 8,000 people per year
- Who it holdsPeople awaiting trial, people sentenced to a year or less, people held for federal authorities, and people sentenced to a state prison. It also operates as a hub for prisoner exchange - other Oregon jails bring prisoners to Marion County to be moved on to other facilities in and out of state
- BailTwo windows. The Circuit Court Annex, 4000 Aumsville Hwy SE, weekdays 8am to 5pm, which takes cashier's cheques payable to the State of Oregon for Marion County charges only; and the Jail Bail Window at the same address from 5pm to 8am and all weekend and holidays, cash only
- ProgrammesMore than 100 citizen volunteers run AA, drug and alcohol education, a GED programme and religious programmes; deputy-led work crews from the jail completed 20,440 hours of community service in the year reported in the county's FY2026-27 adopted budget
- Grant fundingThe jail secured additional funding through the Jail-based Medications for Opioid Use Disorder programme, per the county's own adopted budget
Source: Marion County Sheriff's Office - Institutions Division · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byCounty funds. The FY2026-27 adopted budget carries the Sheriff's Office Institutions Support Program with its own budget justification, staffing schedule and FTE total, and records grant funding through the Jail-based Medications for Opioid Use Disorder programme
- BedsNot found. The county publishes the building's size, 151,000 square feet, and its current population, about 400 adults in custody, but no rated bed capacity
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Nicholas (Nick) Hunter
- Runs the jailYes - the Sheriff's Office Institutions Division 'operates the jail and transition center' and processes all offenders brought in by every police agency in the county
- How the office is filledElected. ORS 204.005 requires Oregon sheriffs to be elected; ORS 204.010 sets a four-year term. Hunter first took the office by appointment
- In office sinceAppointed the 41st Sheriff of Marion County on 30 June 2023 and elected on 5 November 2024
- CareerStarted in November 2001 in two roles at once - reserve deputy in the Enforcement Division and facility security aide at the Marion County Jail. Left for the Independence Police Department, then returned to Marion County in 2008; certified Drug Recognition Expert, SWAT member, and oversaw the agency's use of force programme
- UndersheriffJeremy Landers
- ContactSheriff@co.marion.or.us, 503-588-5094
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Marion County Sheriff's Office - About Your 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. Marion County is the whole of the 3rd Judicial District and has fifteen circuit judges. The county publishes no Justice Court, so there is no county-elected judge in Marion County; the courthouse annex that takes bail during business hours is a Circuit Court building.
Circuit Court - 3rd Judicial District (Marion County)
- James C. Edmonds - Presiding Judge, position 6
- J. Channing Bennett - position 1
- Tracy A. Prall - position 2
- Jennifer K. Gardiner - position 3
- Jodie A. Bureta - position 4
- Daniel J. Wren - position 5
- Sean Armstrong - position 7
- Natasha A. Zimmerman - position 8
- Audrey Broyles - position 9
- Lindsay R. Partridge - position 10
- Michelle Vlach-Ing - position 11
- Courtland Geyer - position 12
- Thomas M. Hart - position 13
- Amy M. Queen - position 14
- Manuel D. Perez - position 15
- 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
- prea is recorded 'yes' with a caveat that matters: Marion publishes a PREA page carrying a 2020 PREA report of jail statistics, its PREA policy 1151, a volunteer and contractor acknowledgement form and PREA training material. It is not an independent PREA audit report. What it does publish that is genuinely unusual is an outside reporting route - a person in custody can report sexual abuse to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office instead of Marion County, anonymously on request, and Marion publishes that contact.
- capacity is recorded 'no' on the strict test. The county publishes the population - 'approximately 400 individuals incarcerated at our Jail facility' and 'a 151,000 square foot structure currently housing 400 adults in custody' - but no rated bed count. The FY2026-27 adopted budget publishes a fifty-two-bed figure for the juvenile detention facility and bed-space agreements with Clackamas and Washington counties for juveniles, but no bed figure for the adult jail.
- fees: the county publishes a monthly IC Solutions phone revenue report at https://www.co.marion.or.us/SO/Institutions/Documents/IC%20Solutions/IC%20Solutions%20Feb%2026.pdf and an Inmate Welfare Fund expenditure sheet, and says 'Fees charged for phone calls are capped by the Legislature' and 'There is a fee to use the kiosk, telephone, and internet options'. The revenue report gives calls, minutes and gross revenue by tariff type, but no published rate a family could look up, so this is recorded 'no'.
- contracts: the county states plainly that the jail holds 'individuals being held for federal authorities' and acts as a statewide prisoner-exchange hub that keeps other counties' transport costs down, but publishes no agreement and no per-day rate.
- roster: the jail roster is at jailviewer.co.marion.or.us, linked from the county's Adult in Custody Lookup page. Booking photos were removed from the roster on 1 January 2022 under HB 3273.
- deaths, inspections: nothing published by the county.
- 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.
- Marion County is governed by a three-member Board of Commissioners elected countywide: Chair Colm Willis, Vice-Chair Kevin Cameron and Commissioner Danielle Bethell. The board offices are at 555 Court St NE, Suite 5232, Salem, OR 97301. The board publishes a current board session agenda and a public calendar of meetings where two or more commissioners are present, but no archive of past minutes could be found on the board's own pages.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Marion 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 Marion 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