Name: Jesse Slaughter
Age: 49
Occupation: Cascade County Sheriff
Party Affiliation: Republican
Q: Why are you running for sheriff?
A: I’m running to be re-elected to my third term as sheriff because I believe Cascade County deserves the very best in law enforcement and public safety. I truly enjoy serving this community, and I believe public safety works best when all of us work together.
As sheriff, I’ve worked to break down the silos between public safety agencies so we can combine resources, collaborate on projects, and better protect the people of Cascade County. I believe in transparency, accountability, and being accessible to the public—keeping people informed and providing regular updates about what’s happening in their Sheriff’s Office.
I also believe the community should have a voice in how their Sheriff’s Office operates. That’s why I’ve focused on involving citizens in our office, our policies, and our practices.
At the end of the day, I’m running because our community comes first. Protecting the integrity of this profession matters, and we must always remain accountable to the people we serve.
Q: What do you consider the top three challenges for the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office?
A: First is always the jail. The jail is the epicenter of public safety and the justice system in our community. Right now, it is underfunded and understaffed. Despite those challenges, our community absolutely needs it operating at full capacity because every part of the justice system depends on it.
Second is infrastructure. The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office is approaching 30 years old, and the jail, specifically, is a facility that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Because of that constant use, the building ages much faster than a normal facility. Over the last seven years, we’ve invested nearly $6 million into infrastructure improvements and repairs. While we may still be several years away from needing a replacement facility, there are constant maintenance and infrastructure challenges that must be addressed to keep the building operational and safe.
Third is public relations and communication. With the rise of social media and the decline of traditional journalism, public opinion often becomes the news before facts are fully known. Social media has completely changed how people consume information about their government and law enforcement. Some of that is positive because it allows direct communication and transparency, but it also creates challenges with misinformation and rapid speculation. Law enforcement today has to understand how to communicate quickly, transparently, and effectively in a way that builds trust and keeps the public informed.
Q: What do you believe is the role of the sheriff in Cascade County?
A: The role of the sheriff in Cascade County is first and foremost to carry out the statutory duties of the office. In our case, that’s not just law enforcement—it’s 14 separate responsibilities, including the Coroner’s Office and Disaster and Emergency Services. Managing those responsibilities with roughly 45 sworn personnel requires strong leadership, oversight, and accountability to ensure those duties are carried out properly and professionally.
The sheriff also has a responsibility to protect constitutional rights while enforcing the laws passed by our legislators and interpreted by the courts. That balance is more complicated than many people realize. Most people simply see something as legal or illegal, but law enforcement has to operate within constitutional protections and evolving Supreme Court decisions every single day.
Another major role of the sheriff is to be a peace officer in the truest sense of the word—keeping the peace between different groups, cultures, and individuals in our community. That requires building relationships and maintaining communication long before conflict ever occurs. Trust and communication are critical to effective public safety.
Finally, the sheriff must be innovative and able to communicate a clear vision for the office. Sheriffs have a significant amount of autonomy, and with that comes the responsibility to adapt to the changing needs of the community. That requires constant interaction with the public. In today’s world, social media can make it difficult to determine what the majority of the community truly wants, which is why it’s important for sheriffs to get out into the community, meet with people directly, and listen to their concerns firsthand.
Q: If elected, what would be your initial priorities? What would you do to accomplish those goals?
A: When I’m re-elected, one of my top priorities will remain getting my federal school safety legislation passed to create long-term sustainability for school safety—not just here locally, but nationwide. School safety cannot be treated as a temporary program or political talking point. It requires stable funding, strong partnerships, and long-term planning.
Another major priority will be to continue working with the new County Commission to reprioritize how the jail is funded. The jail is critical to public safety, and it should not rely primarily on a revenue-based funding model to survive. Long-term, we need a more stable and sustainable funding structure. In the meantime, we must continue renegotiating contracts and ensuring the current model keeps pace with operational costs while still maintaining a jail system that accepts all local pre-trial inmates to protect public safety.
Staffing the jail will also remain a top priority. We have to continue streamlining the hiring process while maintaining high standards to ensure we are hiring quality employees who are professional, capable, and committed to serving this community. Recruitment and retention are challenges facing agencies nationwide, so we must continue adapting while protecting the integrity of the profession.
Finally, I want to continue educating the public on how county government operates and the real challenges facing the sheriff’s office. An informed community leads to better communication, greater accountability, and stronger public trust.
Q: If elected, what would be your approach to addressing drug/alcohol addiction problems in Cascade County?
A: My approach to addressing drug and alcohol addiction in Cascade County starts with accountability and public safety. If someone’s addiction leads to criminal behavior that puts others at risk, they must be held accountable for their actions. Public safety has to remain the priority.
At the same time, addiction is a complex issue that often requires treatment and long-term support. Once individuals are in jail, we work to connect them with help through our social workers, medical staff, local treatment providers, and programs like the Angel Initiative. The goal is to create opportunities for recovery while they are in the system.
For individuals who are struggling with addiction but are not creating a public safety risk, the approach should focus more on empathy, intervention, and connecting them with the appropriate treatment resources. Law enforcement cannot solve addiction alone, which is why partnerships with healthcare providers, treatment programs, and community organizations are critical.
We also have to recognize the impact addiction has on families. Supporting family members and helping connect them with available resources is an important part of addressing the broader problem.
Finally, while we work to help those suffering from addiction, we must continue to aggressively investigate and pursue drug dealers and DUI offenders who prey on addiction and endanger our community.
Q: What approach do you think the CCSO should take to address overcrowding at the jail? Do you believe the jail needs to be expanded or do you think there are ways to reduce the jail population through other means?
A: We’ve already taken several major steps at the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office to address jail overcrowding.
The first major change came in 2021 when we replaced the state prison contract with a U.S. Marshals contract. That increased our daily inmate reimbursement rate from approximately $69 per day to about $115 per day. That increase allowed us to maintain revenue while accepting fewer inmates, which effectively created around 130 additional empty beds and reduced overcrowding pressures.
Then in 2022, our community passed the public safety mill levy that funded our pre-trial services program. That program has significantly reduced our local jail population by allowing appropriate low-risk offenders to be supervised safely outside the jail while awaiting trial. Today, our average inmate population is much lower than it used to be. Prior to the U.S. Marshals contract and pre-trial services, we often housed between 475 and 500 inmates per day. Today, we are operating much closer to our intended capacity of approximately 372 inmates.
These efforts have helped reduce overcrowding substantially, but the larger issue is the jail’s funding model. The current revenue-based model is not sustainable long-term. As operational costs rise due to inflation, staffing, food, healthcare, and labor agreements, revenues eventually get outpaced. Right now, we are renegotiating the U.S. Marshals contract again for a higher daily rate, but eventually, expenses will catch up to those increases as well.
The challenge with a revenue-driven model is that when expenses exceed revenues, the only way to make up the difference is often to increase jail population. That creates additional pressure on detention staff, increases liability, and makes supervision more difficult and less safe.
Currently, the Cascade County Jail operates on roughly a $13 million annual budget, but only about $4 million comes directly from county taxpayers. The remaining funding comes from housing inmates for contract partners. That model has existed since the jail was built in 1998, and transitioning away from it would require several million additional taxpayer dollars annually.
In the future, I do believe we need to seriously examine moving toward a more county-funded jail model because it would provide greater long-term stability and allow us to better control costs without relying on increasing inmate populations. It would also create more flexibility to improve detention officer salaries and operations without tying those improvements directly to jail occupancy.
At this point, I believe we’ve done a very good job reducing the jail population through innovative programs and contracts while still maintaining public safety. Expansion of the jail is not necessary at this time. Expanding the facility would cost taxpayers several million dollars, and we already struggle to fully staff the current jail. Staffing an even larger facility would be extremely difficult. The reality is that we already have a large enough jail facility to meet the needs of Cascade County. Moving forward, the focus should be on reducing our reliance on contract beds and ensuring the jail primarily serves our own local community and public safety needs here in Cascade County.
Q: What role do you think CCSO and law enforcement should play in crime prevention and how would you accomplish that?
A: I believe the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office should always take an active role in preventing crime, not just responding to it after it happens.
Crime prevention starts with visibility and staffing. You need enough deputies on the road and a visible law enforcement presence throughout the county. That’s one of the reasons we deployed resident deputies in areas like the Valley, Cascade, and Belt—to ensure there is a constant law enforcement presence spread throughout our rural communities. When people know deputies are active and visible in their neighborhoods, crime decreases.
During my administration, we have implemented proactive business checks. Deputies routinely check businesses, agricultural properties, storage units, and rural businesses throughout the county to make sure gates and doors are secure. Deputies leave business check cards so owners know their property was checked. Many times, we find unsecured gates or open doors in the middle of the night and contact the property owners so the issue can be corrected before a burglary or theft occurs. Just having deputies actively checking these areas acts as a strong deterrent to criminal activity.
Another critical part of crime prevention is our school resource officer program. Having deputies in schools helps build positive relationships between law enforcement, students, teachers, and parents. It gives young people trusted adults they can communicate with and allows us to identify issues before they become larger problems. We also provide education in schools about addiction, criminal behavior, online safety, and other issues to help prevent young people from becoming involved in crime in the first place.
Public communication plays a major role in prevention. Through social media, press releases, and community outreach, we constantly educate the public about scams, theft prevention, securing firearms, locking vehicles, and protecting valuables. Keeping the public informed helps people take proactive steps to protect themselves and their property.
Finally, proactive enforcement operations are extremely important. Our drug task force actively investigates narcotics activity, works undercover operations, and targets drug dealers who are harming our community. Our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force conducts sting operations to identify and arrest predators before they can victimize children. We’ve also used proactive undercover investigations to shut down illegal massage parlors and human trafficking operations in our community.
Effective crime prevention requires visibility, relationships, communication, education, and proactive enforcement working together every day.
Q: How would you approach community relations and public information? In your opinion, how can the community help law enforcement keep the peace, (i.e. neighborhood watch, calling in tips vs. vigilante justice)?
A: Community relations and public information are some of the most important responsibilities of the office of sheriff. We live in a time where the first narrative people hear is often accepted as the truth, even when it may be inaccurate. Social media has largely replaced traditional media as the public’s primary source of information, which means a sheriff must be proactive, transparent, and willing to communicate directly with the community.
A sheriff should provide the public with as much information as legally and ethically possible. That can sometimes be difficult because there are constitutional protections and state laws that prohibit the release of certain criminal justice information, juvenile information, or youth in need of care cases. Part of maintaining trust with the public is not only sharing information when possible, but also explaining why some information cannot legally be released.
I believe law enforcement should always communicate openly about public records and public court documents such as arrest affidavits and probable cause affidavits. Too often agencies simply release documents without explanation. These documents are frequently written in legal language that many people do not fully understand. The sheriff should answer media questions, utilize social media, and explain these documents in plain language so the public understands what occurred, what the legal process is, and what limitations law enforcement may be working under.
Transparency helps build confidence in law enforcement, but it also helps prevent misinformation, fear, and overreaction. When people feel uninformed, they are more likely to speculate or even take matters into their own hands. That is why community involvement must be encouraged in a responsible and lawful way.
Programs such as Neighborhood Watch can be a tremendous asset to law enforcement because they encourage communication and partnership between citizens and deputies. Citizens who are engaged with law enforcement tend to better understand the role of the sheriff’s office and the limits of the justice system. The public is one of our greatest resources when it comes to keeping the peace. Witness statements, surveillance footage, suspicious activity reports, and tips from community members are often critical in solving crimes and preventing future criminal activity.
At the same time, law enforcement must make it clear that there is a difference between helping law enforcement and engaging in vigilante justice. We want citizens to report suspicious activity, call in tips, preserve evidence, and be alert in their neighborhoods — not confront dangerous individuals or attempt to take enforcement actions themselves. Self-defense would be the exception if a citizen is personally attacked or threatened with bodily harm.
One recent example of the complexities surrounding public information involved the online booking roster at the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office. The Montana Legislature changed the law regarding the public display of mugshots. While media organizations may still request booking photos, law enforcement agencies can no longer broadly publish those images online except under certain circumstances, such as when releasing the image is necessary to protect the public or locate a dangerous individual. The law still gives discretion to the office of sheriff, but it also requires careful judgment and adherence to legal standards.
These are the kinds of constitutional, legal, and ethical issues sheriffs must navigate every day. Keeping the public informed while respecting the law is not always easy, but it is essential to maintaining public trust and confidence in law enforcement’s ability to protect the community.
Q: Since a major responsibility of the sheriff is the budget, how will you be a good steward of the taxpayers’ money?
A: A major responsibility of the sheriff is managing the budget responsibly and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars. The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office has the largest budget in county government, so it’s important to balance the needs of public safety while also being respectful of the other county offices and departments that rely on the same limited tax base.
The first key to responsible budgeting is proper planning and honest communication with the County Commissioners and the public. Every line item in the budget must be justified, and spending must be carefully monitored throughout the fiscal year to avoid overspending. Public safety is a top priority in our community, but that does not mean you can spend recklessly. A sheriff has to understand where money is being spent, why it is being spent, and how to operate efficiently.
One thing experience teaches you is that budgeting becomes more accurate the longer you serve as sheriff. Once you build your office the way you believe it should operate, you begin developing years of spending data that help project future costs more accurately. That historical data is critical when forecasting expenses for staffing, equipment, maintenance, fuel, training, and jail operations.
Sheriff’s office budgets can also be challenging because many revenue sources are outside local control. For example, our U.S. Marshals housing contract is projected each year based on prior revenues. However, at any time the federal government could reduce inmate populations or operational use of our facility, which would directly impact county revenue. While that has not happened during my time as Sheriff, it is something you must always prepare for.
The same challenge exists with grants and outside contracts. Federal and state grants can increase, decrease, or even be canceled during a fiscal year, creating potential budget shortfalls. A sheriff must plan conservatively and avoid becoming overly dependent on temporary funding sources for essential operations.
Another important part of budgeting is preparing for unexpected expenses. Equipment failures, vehicle maintenance, facility repairs, and detention center issues can happen without warning. A responsible Sheriff understands which areas may require additional contingency funding so the office can continue operating without disrupting other county services.
Project planning is also critical. Whether it involves building maintenance, technology upgrades, or equipment purchases, projects must be planned carefully with updated quotes and realistic timelines so costs do not exceed projections once work begins.
At the end of the day, good budgeting comes down to experience, accountability, and understanding every facet of the sheriff’s office. The sheriff must ensure the office operates efficiently, stays within budget, and continues providing high-quality public safety services while respecting the taxpayers who fund those operations. Under Montana law, the sheriff is personally responsible for the office budget, so running the budget responsibly and in the black is not just important — it is part of the job.
Q: What do you believe is the appropriate staffing level of the CCSO to meet the needs of Cascade County? What resources would you need to make changes?
A: The appropriate staffing level for the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office is to be fully staffed in both detention and patrol operations. In law enforcement — and especially in corrections — that can be difficult to achieve, but it has to remain the goal because staffing directly impacts safety, response times, morale, and operational effectiveness.
Ideally, I believe Cascade County would operate a smaller local detention facility focused primarily on pre-trial inmates and local offenders. If we were structured solely as a local city-county jail serving our community, we could operate with fewer detention staff and reduce many of the long-term staffing challenges we currently face.
However, the reality is the current financial model makes that impossible right now. The sheriff’s office only receives roughly $4 million annually in direct taxpayer funding for detention operations, while we must generate approximately $9 million in additional revenue each year to meet the actual operational costs of the jail. Those costs include medical contracts, food service contracts, labor agreements, and the overall expense of operating a large detention facility. Because of that revenue gap, housing outside inmates and maintaining contracts becomes necessary to sustain operations.
Under the current system, we need to remain fully staffed to safely and effectively operate the facility. Staffing shortages in corrections create safety concerns for staff, inmates, and the public, while also increasing overtime costs and burnout among employees.
To address staffing challenges, we have been aggressively working on recruitment and retention efforts. We are conducting hiring blitzes, utilizing paid media advertising, and actively recruiting quality applicants. At the same time, we are streamlining the hiring process to move candidates through more efficiently while maintaining high professional standards and not cutting corners during background investigations or training requirements. Recruiting and hiring in today’s environment is labor-intensive, but it is absolutely necessary.
On the patrol and deputy side, we are currently much closer to full staffing, and the difference has been noticeable. When patrol operations are fully staffed, deputies have greater visibility throughout the county, response capabilities improve, proactive policing increases, and the office has much more operational flexibility. Full staffing also allows us to maintain programs like resident deputies and community policing efforts while reducing strain on existing personnel.
At the end of the day, appropriate staffing is about maintaining safe operations, supporting employees, and ensuring the people of Cascade County receive the level of service they expect from their sheriff’s office.
Q: Related to that, how would you address the shortage of detention officers?
A: We are addressing the shortage of detention officers through aggressive recruiting, heavy advertising, and increased promotion of our hiring process. We’ve also implemented hiring blitz days to help expedite the process and get qualified applicants through more efficiently—without lowering our standards.
In addition, we are working closely with our human resources department and the Cascade County Commissioners to explore incentive programs that make the profession more attractive and competitive. Retention is just as important as recruitment, so we continue advocating for better pay, improved working conditions, professional development opportunities, and a strong team culture that supports the men and women working inside our detention facility every day.
Q: How should the CCSO work with other agencies such as the Great Falls Police Department?
A: We should work closely with all law enforcement agencies throughout Cascade County, especially the Great Falls Police Department. Strong partnerships are critical to public safety, particularly in a large rural area like ours where no single agency ever has enough manpower to handle every challenge alone.
One example of that collaboration is the combined SWAT team between the CCSO and GFPD. By combining resources, we have saved taxpayer dollars while building what I believe is one of the best tactical teams in Montana, if not the Northwest region of the United States. We also work side-by-side every day through our regional drug task force, made up of both deputies and police officers, and we routinely collaborate on major incidents such as shootings, homicides, and missing persons cases.
Partnerships with our federal agencies are equally important, especially when addressing issues like narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, and other large-scale criminal investigations. We also work closely with agencies such as Montana Highway Patrol and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who regularly assist us throughout Cascade County. In many rural parts of the county, those partnerships are essential because staffing resources are limited and incidents can quickly grow beyond the capabilities of one agency alone.
Collaboration also extends statewide. Montana’s sheriffs operate under strong mutual aid relationships, where counties support one another during major incidents, emergencies, and critical staffing shortages. When other counties need help, we respond, and when we need assistance here in Cascade County, they support us as well.
These relationships are not always simple because each agency has different legal responsibilities and authorities established by the Legislature and, in some cases, the Constitution. But when agencies communicate, respect each other’s roles, and focus on serving the public, everyone benefits. Working together improves morale among law enforcement agencies, strengthens public confidence, and most importantly provides better service and better protection for the people we serve.
Q: How do you think CCSO can address mental health issues related to crime and those in the criminal justice system?
A: Mental health issues related to crime and the criminal justice system have become one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement today, both inside our jail and out on the streets. Since becoming sheriff, we have taken significant steps at the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office to better address those issues and connect people with the care they need.
We hired a mental health professional to work directly inside the jail, along with a social worker who assists inmates with aftercare services and treatment planning when they are released back into the community. The goal is not just to manage mental health issues while someone is incarcerated, but to help prevent them from falling back into crisis after release.
In addition, we successfully applied for and received $1.5 million in mental health grant funding to establish a mobile response team and crisis intervention team designed to respond more appropriately to people suffering from mental illness. These programs allow trained professionals and deputies to work together to de-escalate situations and connect individuals with services instead of automatically placing them into the criminal justice system.
However, long-term success will require a true mental health crisis stabilization center in our community. After we secured the grant funding, Indian Family Health Clinic stepped forward and began pursuing the development of a crisis stabilization center through the request-for-proposal process. This facility would be a critical piece of infrastructure for Cascade County because it would give people experiencing a mental health crisis somewhere to go besides jail.
Right now, individuals suffering from severe mental health crises can consume nearly one-third of our jail staff’s time. A crisis stabilization center would provide proper treatment and care in a therapeutic environment while also reducing pressure on detention staff and improving overall jail operations and safety.
This is not just a local problem—it is a statewide and nationwide issue. Solving it requires collaboration between law enforcement, healthcare providers, local government, and private-sector mental health professionals. That is why we participate in monthly mental health roundtable meetings where agencies and providers work together to discuss difficult cases, identify treatment options, and find the most appropriate placements for individuals in crisis.
I believe the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office has gone above and beyond what is traditionally expected from a law enforcement agency when it comes to addressing mental health issues. Public safety today is not just about arrests and incarceration—it is also about intervention, treatment, and building systems that help people before they reach their lowest point.
