The Detention Center
Davis County Jail
- Operated byDavis County Sheriff's Department
- Named on county siteYes — 'Davis County Jail' on the Sheriff's Department page
- Address100 Courthouse Square, Bloomfield, Iowa 52537
- Beds / capacityNot found — no capacity or daily population figure published on the county domain
- Building historyCounty board minutes of January 9, 2017 record a motion 'to move forward with the expansion project at the new jail', and a payment to Noah Detention of $45,505.00 for security equipment on the law center capital project
- Inmate servicesThe sheriff's page links out to third-party vendor services (a friends-and-family portal, a jail deposit site and VINELink) rather than publishing rates or a roster on the county domain
- What was triedhttps://www.daviscountyiowa.gov/sheriffs-department/ ; https://www.daviscountyiowa.gov/contacts/ ; https://www.daviscountyiowa.gov/how-do-i/ ; https://www.daviscountyiowa.gov/agenda/ ; and board minutes for 2017-01-09 — no roster, capacity, fee schedule, bond guidance or inspection report on the county domain
Source: Davis County Sheriff's Department · 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
- BedsNot found
Since then
- January 9, 2017 — the Board of Supervisors voted 'to move forward with the expansion project at the new jail'; the same minutes record $45,505.00 paid to Noah Detention for security equipment on the law center capital project
The Sheriff
Sheriff Zachary Dunlavy
- Runs the jailYes — the Davis County Jail is operated by the Sheriff's Department, consistent with Iowa Code 356.2 giving the sheriff charge and custody of the prisoners in the county jail
- How the office is filledElected; Iowa Code 331.651 makes the sheriff elective to a four-year term
- Address100 Courthouse Square, Bloomfield, Iowa 52537
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Davis County Sheriff's Department · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Iowa district judges are merit-selected: a district judicial nominating commission (Iowa Code ch. 46) sends the governor two nominees, the governor appoints one, and the judge then faces a yes/no retention election and a six-year term. Bail at first appearance is set by a magistrate under Iowa Code 804.22, and 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, two attorneys elected by the county's attorneys) and Iowa Code 602.6403 has that commission appoint the county's magistrates to four-year terms. The three supervisor appointees are the only voter-accountable link in how the bail-setting magistrate got the job. Davis County's own contacts page routes its Clerk of Court entry to the Iowa Judicial Branch page for Judicial District 8, which is how the district is identified here; no individual judge or magistrate was named on a source opened for this entry.
- 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
- Davis County names its jail and gives its address, but publishes nothing else about it — no roster, no capacity, no budget line, no fees, no bond guidance. The sheriff's page sends inmate deposits and victim notification to outside vendor sites rather than publishing rates itself.
- The January 9, 2017 board minutes contain a direct trace of Iowa's jail inspection regime: the then-sheriff 'presented a staffing analysis required by the state jail inspector; no action taken.' That confirms the state jail inspector is active in Davis County, but the staffing analysis itself and the annual inspection report are not posted.
- The 2017 minutes refer to a 'new jail' and an associated law center capital project, but no construction year, cost or bed count is published on the county domain.
- Board of Supervisors, three members, meeting in the Courthouse Boardroom in Bloomfield. Current members were not confirmed: the county's agenda page does not name them, and the only minutes opened date from January 9, 2017, when the board was Ron Bride (Chairman), Matt Greiner and Alan Yahnke. Those 2017 names are recorded as history, not as the present board.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Davis 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