A message from Sheriff Harrold

Lane County must maintain a functional jail in order to have an effective public safety system.  Measure 20-340 does not raise your taxes, it maintains the same level of funding so that we can continue to keep violent felony offenders in custody until their cases are resolved. Failure to renew this levy will have catastrophic consequences to our community.

Prior to the levy’s original passage in 2013, the Lane County Jail was forced to release thousands of offenders each year. This was not because the courts ordered them to be released, but from a lack of capacity to hold them. Many of these offenders were those who committed violent felonies and Measure 11 offenders – individuals that by statute were supposed to be held, but were released back out onto the streets due to a shortage of funded jail beds. 

These types of releases fail to maintain any connectivity to the offender, which generally results in the offender failing to appear in court. This causes a need for arrest warrants to be served and the offender to be brought in again – only to be re-released due to lack of jail capacity. This revolving door is extremely inefficient for all facets of the public safety system: police officers, prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, judges, and more. Defense attorneys never get a chance to meet these offenders before they are back out on the streets, and the judges and court staff continually re-schedule hearings due to the inability to ensure the defendant’s appearance. There is also the fear and anguish felt by the victims of these crimes who are seeing their attackers back out again.

The Lane County Public Safety Levy has guaranteed a minimum of 255 jail beds, as well as 8 detention beds and 8 treatment beds for youth since its original passage in 2013. This levy was renewed by over 72% of voters in 2017. 

Please join me in ensuring that our community continues to have this critical piece of our public safety system.