The Detention Center
Jefferson County Jail
- Operated byJefferson County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Division
- Jail address81 Elkins Road, Port Hadlock, WA 98339 (next to the Sheriff's Office at 79 Elkins Road)
- Published capacity"The Jefferson County Jail is a 57-bed facility" (county Corrections Division page)
- Rated beds / average daily population57 rated beds, ADP 18.8 in CY2025 — WASPC, not the county
- Warrant fee on bail$60.00 cash-only, non-refundable, per warrant an inmate is bailed out on (county Posting Bail page)
- Texting rate published10 cents per 160-character message plus a $4 per month device fee (county Inmate Communications and Commissary page)
- Vendors namedCTEL Technologies for phone, Visitel for video visiting and email, inmatesales.com for account funding
- Year built / original cost / funding / expansionsNot found — checked the Corrections Division page, the Sheriff's Office page, the county site map, the Board of County Commissioners pages and the Budgets page
Source: Jefferson County — Corrections Division · 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
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds57 (county Corrections Division page); WASPC records 57 rated beds and an average daily population of 18.8 for CY2025
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Andy Pernsteiner
- Runs the jailYes — no separate county department of corrections, so under RCW 70.48.090(4) the Sheriff's Office has charge of the jail; it runs it as the Corrections Division
- Day-to-day jail managementDavid Fortino, Chief Corrections Deputy
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- Office79 Elkins Road, Port Hadlock, WA 98339 — 360-385-3831
- NoteThe county's own About Us page says Pernsteiner is the 38th person to hold the office, established 1853
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Jefferson County — Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races and District Court judges in nonpartisan district races; municipal court judges are elected or appointed by the city. All are state judicial officers, not county officials — the county pays part of the cost but does not choose the judge. A judge, not the sheriff or the jail, sets bail. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory at courts.wa.gov. The county's own Superior Court directory currently lists Lorraine Rimson as Superior Court Commissioner, which differs from the state directory listing above.
Jefferson County Superior Court — 1820 Jefferson St, Port Townsend
- Brandon Mack, Judge
- Micky Forbes, Commissioner
- Ariel J. Speser, Commissioner
Jefferson County District Court — 1820 Jefferson St, Port Townsend
- Mindy L. Walker, 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: marked no — 57 beds is published but no daily population figure is, so the check fails on the second half.
- budget: the Budgets page carries the 2026 preliminary budget, the budget-adoption resolution, a 2026 State of the General Fund report and a 2027 budget workshop deck. The Sheriff's About Us page still quotes a fiscal-year-2020 Sheriff's Office budget of $6,721,306, which is stale.
- prea: marked no — the county publishes a PREA policy and a reporting hotline (https://www.co.jefferson.wa.us/239/Prison-Rape-Elimination-Act-of-2003-PREA) but no audit report or findings.
- fees: marked no — the county publishes the texting rate (10c per message, $4/month device) and says on-site kiosk video visits are free and remote visits carry a fee, but publishes no phone rate, no remote video-visit rate and no commissary prices.
- bond_info: the Posting Bail page is unusually specific — cash and cashier's checks accepted 24 hours in the jail lobby, the $60 warrant fee, the 8-15 per cent typical bond-agent fee, and a 2-6 hour release time.
- deaths: the county publishes nothing about a death in custody, and no Department of Health unexpected-fatality review names a Jefferson County facility.
- Washington has no state jail inspectorate and no enforceable statewide jail standards; the Corrections Standards Board was abolished in 1987 and RCW 70.48.071 leaves each local government to adopt its own. The only statewide jail record the state publishes is the Department of Health's unexpected-fatality review file under RCW 70.48.510.
- WASPC 2025 statewide jail statistics: https://www.waspc.org/annual-jail-statistics (data file https://waspc.memberclicks.net/assets/JbrsSavin/2025.xlsx)
- Three commissioners elected by district: Heather Dudley-Nollette (District 1), Heidi Eisenhour (District 2), Greg Brotherton (District 3). Jefferson County publishes no jail district and no dedicated jail tax.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Jefferson 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 auditor runs the election in Jefferson 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