The Detention Center
Polk County Jail
- Operated byPolk County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address850 Main Street, Dallas, OR 97338 - jail line 503-623-9254, jail administration jail.admin@polkcountyor.gov
- When it was builtCompleted in August 1999 - 'The Polk County Jail was completed in August of 1999', the county's own words
- Capacity195 inmates - from the same sentence on the county's own Jail page
- Inspection result'During our first State Jail Inspection, the Polk County Jail received an overall rating of 99.8%' - the county's own Jail page
- What the jail says it is forPretrial detention for criminal justice agencies in Polk County and a place to serve court-imposed sentences, operating 'as directed by federal laws, Oregon Statutes and Oregon Jail Standards'
- Suicide preventionThe county publishes a suicide-prevention notice on both the Jail and the roster page, stating that suicide is the leading cause of death in jails and prisons and that the US jail suicide rate is almost four times the national average, with a direct number for jail medical staff, 503-831-1738
- BudgetThe county's adopted FY2025-26 budget carries Jail as its own division at $8,339,487 with 34.00 FTE, and a separate Jail-Building Maintenance division at $547,951 with 2.75 FTE. The budget message records that rent for the Jail increased by 4.8 per cent for the year
- Money it takes inThe same budget shows the Jail division budgeted for $550,000 in charges for services, $300,000 in state shared revenue (impact) and $25,000 in federal awards
- Scam warningA 2026 alert on the Jail page states the Sheriff's Office will never contact anyone asking for bail or fine money, and to refuse requests to pay by bitcoin or other electronic payment
Source: Polk County Jail · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓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
- ✗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 built1999 - 'The Polk County Jail was completed in August of 1999', the county's own Jail page
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found as a construction figure. The jail is carried as its own division in the county's adopted budget at $8,339,487 for FY2025-26, with a separate Jail-Building Maintenance division of $547,951; the budget message records the jail's rent rising 4.8 per cent for the year
- Beds195 - 'has a capacity of 195 inmates', the county's own Jail page
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Mark Garton
- Runs the jailYes - the Polk County Sheriff's Office operates the Polk County Jail at the same address as the Sheriff's Office
- How the office is filledElected. ORS 204.005 requires Oregon sheriffs to be elected to four-year terms
- Command staffCaptain Jeff Isham; Lieutenant Dustin Newman, Patrol Commander; Lieutenant Richard Bittick, Jail Commander
- OfficePolk County Sheriff's Office, 850 Main St., Dallas, OR 97338 - 503-623-9251, jail 503-623-9254, office hours Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm
- Complaint routesThe Sheriff's Office publishes a profiling complaint form and a complaint-against-an-employee form as downloadable PDFs on its own front page
- How this was verifiedNamed and signed on the county's own Sheriff's Office page and listed as the contact for that page
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Polk 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. ORS 169.320 makes the sheriff the keeper of the county jail; the sheriff may appoint a keeper but remains responsible. Polk County is the whole of the 12th Judicial District and has three circuit judges sitting in Dallas. Polk County runs no Justice Court, so there is no locally elected Justice of the Peace here. The county's own Posting Bail page explains the practical effect of Senate Bill 48, effective 1 July 2022, which ended cash bail for misdemeanour and felony arrests: the only arrests that now carry bail are warrants and restraining or stalking order violations, and for most crimes security is set once the person has been arraigned by a Circuit Court judge Monday to Friday. Bail is posted at the Criminal Court Records window at 884 SE Jefferson Street, Dallas - a court counter, not the jail.
Circuit Court - 12th Judicial District (Polk County)
- Norm R. Hill - Presiding Judge
- Monte S. Campbell - Circuit Judge
- Rafael A. Caso - Circuit Judge
- 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
- capacity: recorded 'yes' on the published 195-bed capacity. Polk does not publish a daily population figure; the roster is a live list rather than a count, and photos were removed from it after House Bill 3273 passed.
- inspections: recorded 'yes'. The county's own Jail page publishes a state jail inspection result - an overall rating of 99.8 per cent at the jail's first State Jail Inspection. That is a rating without a date or a copy of the report, so it is thin, but it is a published inspection result and it is the county's own claim on its own site.
- prea: recorded 'no'. Polk does publish a substantial PREA page at https://www.polkcountyor.gov/913/prison-rape-elimination-act explaining the Act, the zero-tolerance standard and the obligations of professional visitors, and requires contractors to sign a PREA and Custodial Sexual Misconduct form before working inside the jail. That is policy and notice, not an audit result, so the check is 'no'.
- fees: recorded 'no'. Polk publishes quarterly SB 498 phone commission revenue and expense reports at https://www.polkcountyor.gov/870/SB-498-Phone-Commission , covering every quarter of 2024 and 2025, and offers older reports by email to jail.admin@polkcountyor.gov. That is revenue and expenditure, not a rate card. Calls are collect only through Viapath, and no per-minute, video visit or commissary price is published.
- bond_info: the Posting Bail page is unusually clear about what SB 48 changed and about the practical mechanics - the court records window at 884 SE Jefferson Street, the Viapath telephone route, gettingout.com, and the kiosk in the visitation lobby at Door 2 - and it warns plainly that money deposited is given to the person in custody, who then decides whether to post it.
- deaths: nothing published about a death in custody. The county does publish a jail suicide prevention notice on two pages with a direct medical line.
- contracts: nothing published about holding other agencies' prisoners or the rate for doing so. The budget shows the Jail division taking $550,000 in charges for services, but does not say from whom.
- budget: adopted budgets are published for every year from 2018-19 to 2025-26 at the Finance Department page cited.
- state_inspection: Oregon has no state jail inspectorate and the Oregon State Sheriffs' Association publishes no per-jail finding. Polk's own claim of a 99.8 per cent State Jail Inspection rating is recorded here as what the county publishes, not as an independently verifiable document.
- Polk County is governed by a three-member Board of County Commissioners: Craig Pope, Lyle Mordhorst and Jeremy Gordon. The county's own words are that the Board's goal is 'to make public policy and manage County affairs openly and efficiently'. Meetings are recorded and posted to the county's YouTube channel and virtual attendance can be arranged through the Board's executive assistant with 24 hours' notice. The Board sits at 850 Main Street, Dallas - the same address as the Sheriff's Office and the jail. Tuesday work sessions and Wednesday Board meetings run weekly. The Board adopts the budget that carries the Jail as its own division.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Polk 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 Polk 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