The Detention Center
Allamakee County Jail
- Operated byAllamakee County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address877 Highway 9, Waukon, Iowa 52172; phone 563-568-4521
- Room and board charged to inmates$50.00 per day for sentenced inmates, with variations for work release and out-of-county inmates, plus additional expenses for medical and dental services
- Work releaseApplication and rules published; "ANY VIOLATION OF WORK RELEASE RULES WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION"
- Intake condition postedPersons who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are on isolation, or who have COVID-19 symptoms, are not accepted until cleared medically
- StaffingThe jail is staffed by combined dispatcher/jailer positions — the sheriff told the board on September 2, 2025 that the role involves technology requirements, inmate interaction, overnight shifts and high-stress situations, and that the county is "competing against the private sector and neighboring counties who pay $2-3 more per hour starting out"
- Beds / year builtNot found — no capacity figure and no construction date is published on the county site
- What was triedhttps://allamakeecounty.iowa.gov/sheriffjail ; https://allamakeecounty.iowa.gov/departments/sheriff/jail ; https://allamakeecounty.iowa.gov/departments/sheriff ; the county's own jail policy and procedure manual at https://allamakeecounty.iowa.gov/uploads/site/sheriff/policies/pdf-allamakee-jail-policy-and-procedure-manual.pdf (which names the sheriff but carries no capacity, PREA or inspection content); and the September 2, 2025 supervisors' minutes. None carries an inmate roster, a bond schedule, a PREA audit, an IDOC inspection report, or commissary and phone rates.
Source: Allamakee County — County Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
1/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found. County jails in Iowa run on county property and local taxes; no federal funding is claimed here.
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Clark A. Mellick
- Runs the jailYes — the elected sheriff, under Iowa Code 356.2 ("The sheriff shall have charge and custody of the prisoners in the jail or other prisons of the sheriff's county") and Iowa Code 331.653(35)
- How the office is filledElected to a four-year term under Iowa Code 331.651; the sheriff must be a certified peace officer or complete basic training within a year, and on a vacancy the first deputy assumes the office
- Confirmed currentNamed as Sheriff on the county's own sheriff page and appears by name in the Board of Supervisors minutes for September 2, 2025, discussing sheriff's office staffing and the collective bargaining agreement
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Allamakee County — Sheriff · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Iowa's district judges are merit-selected, not elected in contested races: a district judicial nominating commission (Iowa Code ch. 46 — five electors appointed by the governor, five elected by the resident bar, chaired by the judge of longest service) sends the governor two nominees, the governor appoints one, and the judge then faces a yes/no retention election and six-year terms. Iowa has 14 judicial election districts for nominating purposes. Bail at first appearance is set by a magistrate, not a district judge: Iowa Code 804.22 requires an arrested person to be taken 'without unnecessary delay...before the nearest or most accessible magistrate,' who 'shall fix the amount of bail or other conditions of release.' Iowa magistrates are appointed, not elected — Iowa Code 602.6501 puts a magistrate appointing commission in each county (one district judge, three members appointed by the county board of supervisors, and two attorneys elected by the county's attorneys), and Iowa Code 602.6403 has that commission appoint the county's magistrate or magistrates to four-year terms. The three supervisor appointees are the only voter-accountable link in how the official who sets bail got the job. Judges are state judicial officers, not county officials, and are not added to the vote line.
Iowa District Court — district judges for this county's judicial election district
- Not found
Magistrate — the officer who fixes bail at initial appearance (Iowa Code 804.22)
- Not found
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-09-18
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Allamakee County names and describes its jail on its own site, which is more than most of this group. What it does not publish is a roster, a bed count, a daily population, a bond schedule, a corrections budget, a PREA audit or an IDOC inspection report.
- fees is marked "no" on a deliberate reading of the check, which asks for phone, video visit and commissary rates. Allamakee publishes a different charge — $50.00 per day room and board billed to sentenced inmates, at https://allamakeecounty.iowa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Sheriff-Jail_Room-Board-obligation-Methods-of-Payment.pdf — with variations for work release and out-of-county inmates. That is a real published rate and worth recording, but it is not the telecom-and-commissary pricing the check asks about.
- The reference to out-of-county inmates in the room-and-board schedule implies the jail does hold people for other jurisdictions, but no contract and no per-diem rate for another agency is published, so contracts is "no".
- Deaths in custody: Iowa has no public dataset. Iowa Admin. Code 201—50.22(14) requires the state jail inspection unit to be notified within 24 hours of any death, attempted suicide, fire, escape, injury to staff or prisoners from assaults, or use of force and prisoner self-injuries; Iowa Code 127.3(1) requires an autopsy for a custodial death not explained by a natural disease process.
- Open records: Iowa Code ch. 22, right at 22.2. No blanket deadline; 22.8(4) caps confidentiality-screening delay at twenty calendar days and says it ordinarily should not exceed ten business days.
- Board of Supervisors — three members as recorded in the September 2, 2025 minutes: Dan Byrnes (Chairperson), Dennis Keatley and Tom Clark. The board meets at the Allamakee County Courthouse, 110 Allamakee Street, Waukon, IA 52172. The sheriff appears before the board directly on staffing and collective bargaining, which is where jail matters surface in this county's public record.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Allamakee County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered