As the summer heats up, Multnomah County’s two jails are packed to the brim.
They’re so full, in fact, that 20 inmates were released last weekend just so another round of incoming detainees could be locked up. It was the first time in nearly four years that county inmates were prematurely booted—a process authorities call “matrixing”—simply because there’s no other place for the newly arrested.
This summer, law enforcement organizations in Multnomah County—including the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), the largest driver of inmates at the jails—have regularly been given an “emergency population notice” by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), which operates the facilities. That “red alert” notice, issued when 95 percent of the beds are taken up, encourages cops to “cite-and-release” some folks they might otherwise take to jail, or currently incarcerated people will be sprung from either the Multnomah County Detention Center downtown or the Inverness Jail in Northeast Portland.