PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon’s largest county is looking to unload a jail in mint condition — having never housed a suspect or convict. 
The Wapato (WAH’-puh-tow) Jail was built a decade ago at a cost of $58 million, and Multnomah County is spending more than $300,000 a year for maintenance, but assumptions about crime rates and other trends never panned out, and the county didn’t set aside enough funds to open the jail and hire a staff.
So it has sat vacant, except for short-term uses such as providing the set for productions as varied as the TV show “Grimm” and an ad for vacuum cleaners.
Now a startup company wants to propose to the county a plan that would allow them to lease the facility to house customers who want to pay to go to jail.
Michael Talbot wants to give customers what he calls ‘the full jail experience’ – jailhouse meals, searches, handcuffs and barking guards.
“I’ve talked to many law abiding citizens and a healthy majority think it’d be interesting to go to jail for a night or a week. Some even said a month.”
Will people be able to leave before their time is up?
“That’s something we’ve debated and to really receive the full jail experience you need to do your time. We will only allow prisoner release if there is a dire medical or family emergency. Otherwise, they’re locked up for the time they paid for. Also, each customer will be randomly assigned a crime they committed from rape, child abuse to murder and we encourage them to get into the character of an inmate who would have committed that crime.”
Talbot said males and females will be booked through different booking stations and segregated.
Talbot also said the jail will not tolerate sexual abuse, fighting or drug use and would be very surprised if normal people smuggled in drugs, started fights or sexually abused each other even if they are in character.
“If it happens, we’ll crack down on that hard. We’re not sure if we’re going to have a hole, but we’ll do thorough cell searches and segregate sexual offenders and people who fight will be put into temporary restraints.”
Single nights, Talbot estimates, will cost $799 and weekly packages could sell for $5200. If successful, they’ll consider selling a monthly package, but he says he won’t sell life sentences as he doesn’t feel the market is there.