Benton County, Oregon

in-custody substance abuse treatment, in-custody education, GED prep, and cognitive behavioral therapy. We also are looking at a new 112-bed jail facility, almost three times the size of our current facility. We can then bring the inmates we’ve sent to NORCOR back to be housed here to serve their time in our Community Corrections Facility instead of a facility that’s three hours away.” Kerby adds that these proposed expenses will have to go to the voters for approval, which is part of the next phase , at a total investment relative to capital cost of about $85 million for the new jail and a new courthouse, combined with a new law enforcement center to house all criminal justice components in one location. “But the county doesn’t have $85 million to spend on this,” he laments. “We would not be able to pursue this project without being able to get voter support, so I anticipate that over the course of the next several years, we will be going to the voters. But prior to that, we are looking at some of the low-hanging fruit that is more programmatic in nature, for example the sobering center, the respite center, pretrial services so that we don’t have to house all those inmates, but can use programs such as ankle monitoring instead.” Kerby notes how serious the issue has become as the County is regularly required to do what they call “forced releases.” When the jail is full they have to stop accepting inmates. Because they don’t have room, the jail staff has to decide who they’re going to release from jail that otherwise would be staying to complete their sentences, or those coming from drug court who may not have been successful in that program and have been deemed needing to fulfill their jail sentences. “The number of those forced releases has continued to climb every year for at least the last five years, if not longer, so our system is overwhelmed and we are trying to find a systematic way of approaching it. It’s not just about housing people but about helping them become more productive members of society.” PREFERRED VENDORS n Benton County Historical Society www.bentoncountymuseum.org n Samaritan Health Services www.samhealth.org