The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners was briefed on the progress of the Corrections Recommendations Project on Tuesday. This comes in light of a troubling uptick in the deaths of adults in custody within the county's jails, with 2023 alone witnessing seven fatalities, surpassing the total for the preceding seven years, and adding to the unprecedented number of custodial deaths since 2022, as reported by Multnomah County News.
Jenny Carver, Deputy Chief of Staff for Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell, cited the mission of the project as designing a "thoughtful and sustainable way" to heighten transparency and reinforce accountability when it comes to the safety of inmates. Despite the grim context, since April 2024, the project has translated 407 recommendations from 14 different reports into 64 actionable goals, targeting operations, staffing, and facility improvements; however the challenge persists, and the team has only completed 3% of these goals to date and about 30% are currently being implemented with the remaining ones being in different stages of review or planning.
During the meeting, Sheriff Morrisey O’Donnell declared, "I am accountable to this community," acknowledging the partnership with Corrections Health and her commitment to enhancing the department's capabilities to prevent further deaths. Complicating these efforts, according to Morrisey O’Donnell, are the ongoing hurdles of hiring and retaining sufficient staff to both enact these goals and uphold essential services amid broader societal crises involving mental health, addiction, and homelessness, according to Multnomah County News.
Simultaneously, Corrections Health Deputy Director Tony Gaines and Corrections Facilities Chief Deputy Steve Reardon underscored the collaborative streamlining between their respective bodies, focusing on data sharing and monitoring for symptoms of mental health issues or substance abuse amongst the incarcerated, ensuring timely interventions. Commissioner Jesse Beason pondered on the resilience of this new infrastructure in the face of leadership and staff fluxes, to which the Sheriff’s response pointed again to staffing as a major barrier over the next year due to the aforementioned crises.
Moreover, discussions on the fiscal approach to these challenges came up with Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards expressing interest in potentially adjusting the budget mid-year to address staffing needs; although Chair Jessica Vega Pederson remarked that County procedures typically don’t favor such mid-term amendments. Vega Pederson did confirm, however, that all positions within the Sheriff's Office were fully funded, leaving room for discussions about additional needs based on the project's recommendations.
