The Detention Center
No county jail — Friday Harbor holding facility, then SCORE (South Correctional Entity)
- Operated bySan Juan County Sheriff's Office runs the holding facility; SCORE, a separate government, holds the county's prisoners
- Where the county's prisoners go'In-custody individuals who are awaiting trial or serving a sentence are sent to the South Correctional Facility (SCORE) in Des Moines Washington' (county Holding Facility page)
- Holding facilityA temporary facility in Friday Harbor holding all persons taken into custody; visitation limited to attorneys only
- What SCORE isThe South Correctional Entity Public Development Authority, a separate government formed by south King County cities under an interlocal agreement, with its own board and its own executive; San Juan County is a customer, not a member city. SCORE's public address is 20817 17th Ave S, Des Moines, WA 98198, with an entrance at 1801 S 200th St, SeaTac
- SCORE administratorNot found — scorejail.org publishes no named executive director or administrator, and the San Juan County site names none
- State jail statisticsThe San Juan County Sheriff's Office appears in the WASPC 2025 'Agencies Not Reporting' tab with the explanation 'Agency unable to contribute data to VINE/JBRS' — so there is no state average daily population, bed count or death figure for San Juan
- BudgetThe 2026 Sheriff's Office department budget book carries a 'Jail — Current Expense Fund (0001.58)' with its own funding source and expense sections and a 'Jail fees – DOC' revenue line, and explains that the office employs corrections/courthouse security officers to run the temporary holding facility
- Beds / year built / costNot found for the Friday Harbor holding facility — checked the Holding Facility page, the Sheriff's Office pages, the Sheriff's Office Team page, the 2026 Sheriff's department budget book and the county site map
Source: San Juan County — Holding Facility · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓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 — not published
- ✗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 found — the county describes a temporary holding facility and publishes no bed count; the Sheriff's Office did not report to the WASPC 2025 jail statistics
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Eric Peter
- Runs the jailThere is no county jail to run. The Sheriff's Office keeps a temporary holding facility in Friday Harbor; everyone awaiting trial or serving a sentence goes to SCORE in Des Moines
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term (RCW 36.16.030); the Sheriff's own page thanks 'the voters of San Juan County' for the office
- Also runsAn electronic home monitoring programme for post-sentence cases of under 365 days, supervised by corrections officers seven days a week
- Before San JuanRetired from the Houston Police Department in 2017 after service from 1995; joined the San Juan County Sheriff's Office as a Patrol Sergeant
- OfficeSheriff's Office — 360-378-4151
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: San Juan County — Sheriff's Office Team · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races and District Court judges in nonpartisan district races. Both 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. Vacancies are filled by gubernatorial appointment until the next election. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory.
San Juan County Superior Court — 350 Court St #7, Friday Harbor
- Kathryn C. Loring, Judge
- Alan R. Hancock, Commissioner
San Juan County District Court — 350 Court St, Friday Harbor (Friday Harbor municipal cases are heard here)
- Carolyn M. Jewett-Platts, 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
- San Juan County is one of the Washington counties with no jail. The county's own page is explicit about it and about where its prisoners go, so this is recorded as a finding rather than a gap.
- The county names its holding facility and names SCORE on its own site, so the 'named' check passes even though there is no county jail.
- There is no roster: the county publishes no list of who is in custody, and the Sheriff's Office told WASPC it is unable to contribute data to VINE or the state Jail Booking and Reporting System.
- The county publishes a list of three approved bail bonding companies with addresses, phone numbers and approval expiry dates under its jury and court pages, but no page explains how to post bail, so the bond_info check is recorded 'no'. The list is at https://www.sanjuancountywa.gov/190/Bail-Bonding-Companies
- No PREA material, no inspection or accreditation result, no death-in-custody information and no phone, video-visit or commissary rates are published by the county. SCORE publishes its own phone and commissary page, but that is SCORE's disclosure, not the county's.
- The county does hold a Law & Justice Council, listed among its boards and commissions.
- San Juan County is a home-rule charter county. Its governing body is not a Board of County Commissioners but a three-member County Council, elected countywide with one member resident in each of three residency districts, serving staggered four-year terms: Kari McVeigh, Justin Paulsen and Jane Fuller. Voters cut the council from six district-elected members to three in November 2012, effective 13 May 2013. No jail district and no dedicated jail tax were found; detention costs sit in the Sheriff's Office budget as Jail — Current Expense Fund 0001.58. The Council is working through a roughly $4 million gap in the 2027 budget.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in San Juan 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 San Juan 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