The Door County Sheriff’s Department released their 2020 report on Friday, and some statistics had significantly lower numbers than in past years. One notable stat was the average number of inmates per day at the Door County jail had dropped thirty-five percent from 80/day to 52/day. Door County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Pat McCarty noted this is completely a result of COVID measures and a lot of numbers in the 2020 report could have an asterisk next to them. One of the measures taken to keep inmates and staff safe was to furlough huber inmates. 

Releasing a department report isn’t mandatory, but releasing a user-friendly sheriff’s report is a point of emphasis for Sheriff Tammy Sternard. McCarty also understands residents valuing department transparency. 

Now that the page has been flipped to 2021, McCarty looks back on the last year and calls the work of the department commendable. With the unpredictability presented, department staff had to make many adjustments on the fly. McCarty thinks the Sheriff’s Department could take some of the adjustments and use a blended approach to certain operations going forward. One thing that jumped out to him was how efficient handling non-urgent matters over the phone or Zoom can be. 

With more public events taking place, McCarty believes the number of cases and arrests will come up some in 2021. The department report can be found here.