The Detention Center
Kitsap County Jail
- Operated byKitsap County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Division
- Jail address614 Division Street MS-33, Port Orchard, WA 98366 — entry off Cline Street behind the courthouse
- Described by the county as"a regional correctional facility that operates 24 hours a day, housing both males and females"
- Average daily population published by the county271 in 2025 with 5,256 bookings (Sheriff's Office 2025 Annual Report); 297 in 2024 with 4,817 bookings and a 29-day average stay (2026 budget hearing presentation)
- Rated beds544, against an ADP of 263.9 in CY2025 — WASPC, not the county
- Budget pressure disclosedThe county's own 2026 budget hearing presentation lists "Closing a pod" and the elimination of three corrections officer posts
- Vendors namedSmart Communications for phone, smartinmate.com for video visiting, accesscorrections.com for commissary funds
- Year built / original cost / funding / expansionsNot found — checked the Corrections page, the Inmate Communications page, the 2025 Annual Report, the 2026 budget hearing presentation and the county budget pages
Source: Kitsap County Sheriff's Office — Corrections · 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
- BedsNot published by the county. WASPC records 544 rated beds against an average daily population of 263.9 in CY2025; the county publishes ADP (271 in 2025) but no capacity.
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff John Gese
- 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 managementPenelope Sapp, Chief of Corrections
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- Office614 Division Street, Port Orchard, WA 98366
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Kitsap County Sheriff's Office — 2025 Annual Report · 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. No presiding judge is identified on Kitsap County Superior Court's own web pages.
Kitsap County Superior Court — 614 Division St, Port Orchard
- Michelle Adams
- Jeffrey P. Bassett
- Cadine Ferguson-Brown
- Jennifer A. Forbes
- Melissa A. Hemstreet
- William C. Houser
- Kevin D. Hull
- Tina Robinson
- Matthew Clucas, Commissioner
- Lynn K. Fleischbein, Commissioner
Kitsap County District Court — 614 Division St, Port Orchard
- Claire A. Bradley
- Gina M. Buskirk
- Kevin P. Kelly
- Shane R. Seaman
Municipal courts — Bainbridge Island, Bremerton, Port Orchard, Poulsbo
- Thomas S. Alpaugh (Bainbridge Island)
- Thomas Weaver (Bremerton)
- Rebecca L. Jones, Commissioner (Bremerton)
- Timothy A. Drury (Port Orchard)
- Robert Davy (Poulsbo)
- 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 — the county publishes average daily population and booking counts in the Sheriff's annual report and the budget hearing presentation, but no rated bed capacity, so the check fails on the first half.
- roster: the county operates its own Web Jail Viewer at incustody.kitsap.gov with in-custody, booked-last-72-hours and released-last-24-hours lists.
- prea: marked no for the adult jail. The county does publish a PREA facility audit report — but for its Juvenile Detention facility (https://www.kitsap.gov/juv/Documents/PREA_Audit2023.pdf), not for the Kitsap County Jail. Nothing on PREA for the adult jail was found on the Sheriff's pages.
- deaths: marked no — the county publishes no in-custody death record. The Department of Health's file carries five unexpected-fatality reviews naming Kitsap County Sheriff facilities between 2023 and 2026.
- fees: marked no — the county names Smart Communications and directs readers to smartinmate.com "to find out ... what the costs associated with inmate communications are", but publishes no rate itself, and no commissary prices.
- contracts: nothing published on the county site sets out an agreement or rate for holding another agency's prisoners, despite the county describing the jail as regional.
- 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: Christine Rolfes (District 1), Oran Root (District 2), Katie Walters (District 3). Kitsap County publishes no jail district and no dedicated jail tax; it does levy a behavioural health sales tax whose spending the Board allocates.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Kitsap 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 Kitsap 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