The Detention Center
Wahkiakum County Jail
- Operated byWahkiakum County Sheriff's Office
- Rated beds (state figure)14 — WASPC 2025 Annual Jail Statistics; the smallest rated jail in this group
- Average daily population 20256.3, against 14 rated beds (WASPC 2025)
- Throughput 2025147 admissions, average length of stay 29.17 days (WASPC 2025)
- In-custody deaths 2025None — the Sheriff's Office answered "No" in the WASPC 2025 return
- Jail addressNot found on a county page that could be opened; the Sheriff's Office is at 64 Main Street, Cathlamet
- What was triedThe county site co.wahkiakum.wa.us was reachable only at its home page; the Sheriff's Office page, the Board of County Commissioners page, the departments index, the staff directory and the commissioner districts document could not be retrieved on repeated attempts. No usable county-published jail page could be read; the aggregator sites that appear in search results for this jail are not county sources and were not used.
Source: WASPC 2025 Annual Jail Statistics · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
- Beds14 rated beds in the WASPC 2025 return; no county-published bed count could be read
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff John Mason
- Runs the jailYes — Wahkiakum County has created no department of corrections, so under RCW 70.48.090(4) the Sheriff has charge of the jail
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term (RCW 36.16.030); Mason was elected at the general election of 4 November 2025 with 1,734 votes, 87.44 per cent, against Josh Grasseth's 246
- PredecessorMark Howie, sheriff from October 2012, announced his retirement in 2024; the 2025 election filled the office
- Office64 Main Street, Cathlamet, WA 98612 — 360-795-3242 (address and phone from the Washington State Sheriffs' Association county directory)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Washington Secretary of State — Wahkiakum County, 4 November 2025 general election results · 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 and not 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. Wahkiakum has one Superior Court judge and one District Court judge, and the District Court also serves as the Cathlamet municipal court, so a single judge covers most first appearances in the county.
Wahkiakum County Superior Court — 64 Main St, Cathlamet
- Donald J. Richter, Judge
Wahkiakum County District Court — 64 Main St, Cathlamet
- Heidi L. Heywood, 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
Notes on the record
- Every check is 'no' because the county's own site could not be read, not because it was read and found empty. Only the home page of co.wahkiakum.wa.us ever returned content; the Sheriff's Office, Board of County Commissioners, departments and staff directory pages all failed. This is a retrieval failure and should be re-checked before anything is inferred from it.
- The sheriff's name needed care. The Washington State Sheriffs' Association county directory still listed Mark Howie, who took office in October 2012 — but Howie announced his retirement in 2024 and the office was filled at the general election of 4 November 2025, which John Mason won with 87.44 per cent. The Secretary of State's official results are cited rather than the association directory.
- Wahkiakum runs the smallest jail in this group: 14 rated beds, an average daily population of 6.3 and 147 admissions in 2025, yet an average length of stay of 29.17 days — longer than Snohomish, Spokane or Skamania.
- Wahkiakum's juvenile court administration is based at 300 Memorial Ave, South Bend, in Pacific County, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts directory.
- Board of County Commissioners — three commissioners elected to four-year terms from three districts. Their names could not be confirmed: the county's Board of County Commissioners page and its commissioner districts document could not be retrieved on any attempt. The courthouse is at 64 Main Street, Cathlamet. No jail district or dedicated jail tax could be established either way.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Wahkiakum 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 Wahkiakum 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