The Detention Center
O'Brien County Jail
- Operated byO'Brien County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address240 1st Street NE, PO Box 260, Primghar, Iowa 51245-0260
- Built2000
- Beds42 beds in general population plus 10 in the holding area — 52 detainees total across the pods
- Jail phone(712) 957-5245
- Jail supervisor named by the countyLieutenant Thomas Raymond, Jail Supervisor, at the office since 1998 — a supervisor under the elected sheriff, not a separate jailing authority
- What was triedhttps://www.obriencountysheriff.com/prea-information/ (PREA page appears in the site navigation but could not be opened); https://www.obriencounty.com/government/obrien-county-government-links (an economic-development site, not the county government) pointed to http://www.obriencounty.org/ for the courthouse, which could not be opened
Source: O'Brien County Sheriff — Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗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 built2000
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds42 general population beds plus 10 holding — 52 detainees total
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Bruce Devereaux
- TitleO'Brien County Sheriff
- Runs the jailYes — Iowa Code 356.2 gives the sheriff charge and custody of the prisoners in the county jail
- How the office is filledElected countywide to a four-year term (Iowa Code 331.651)
- Office address240 1st Street NE, PO Box 260, Primghar, Iowa 51245-0260
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: O'Brien County Sheriff — home page · checked 2026-09-18
The Judges
Iowa district judges are merit-selected: 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 and no contested judicial elections. Bail at first appearance is set by a magistrate under Iowa Code 804.22, and Iowa magistrates are appointed, not elected: a county magistrate appointing commission — one district judge, three members appointed by the county board of supervisors, and two attorneys elected by the county's attorneys (Iowa Code 602.6501) — appoints the county's magistrates to four-year terms (Iowa Code 602.6403). The three supervisor appointees are the only voter-accountable link in how the bail-setting officer got the job. Judges are state judicial officers, not county officials, and are not added to the vote line.
Magistrate — sets bail at first appearance (Iowa Code 804.22)
- Not found
Iowa District Court — judicial district serving O'Brien County
- 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
Notes on the record
- Iowa inspects every jail every year but does not publish the report. Iowa Code 356.43 and Iowa Admin. Code r. 201—50.3 require the chief jail inspector to visit and inspect each jail in the state at least annually, and r. 201—50.2(3) allows those visits to be unannounced. But Iowa Code 356.43(4) routes the resulting report only to the IDOC director, the sheriff or police chief, the local governing body and the county attorney — nothing requires anyone to post it, and doc.iowa.gov has no jail-inspection section. This county does not publish its copy. No inspection report for this county was found on its own domain.
- Deaths in custody: Iowa has no public dataset. Iowa Admin. Code r. 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, use of force or prisoner self-injury, and Iowa Code 127.3(1) requires an autopsy for a death in a jail or in police custody where no natural disease process accounts for it. Neither duty produces a published number. The 'deaths' check passes only if the county itself publishes a death in its custody, and this county does not.
- Population and capacity: Iowa Code 356.49 requires every sheriff to file a monthly written report with the IDOC director giving the number of men, women and juveniles held, but no evidence was found that IDOC publishes it and there is no state jail-population page, so capacity can pass only on the county's own numbers.
- The sheriff's office publishes a rolling arrest log PDF (https://www.obriencountysheriff.com/cruploads/AR_Log_SCH.pdf, covering 08/17/2026 through 09/17/2026 when opened, 39 records). It gives name, date of birth, arrest date, charge with Iowa code citation and release date/time, but no bond amounts and it is an arrest log rather than a current-custody roster, so 'roster' is recorded 'no'.
- Capacity is recorded 'yes' on published rated beds only (42 general population, 10 holding, 52 total). No daily population figure was found.
- A PREA Information page appears in the sheriff's site navigation but could not be opened, so 'prea' is recorded 'no' rather than cited.
- No published bail-posting guidance, phone or commissary rates, boarding contract, death in custody or inspection result was found on the sheriff's site.
- Iowa county jails are funded by the county — property and local option sales taxes and county general fund appropriations. Federal money reaches them only through per-diem boarding, SCAAP and grants.
- Open records: Iowa Code ch. 22. The right is at 22.2 — 'Every person shall have the right to examine and copy a public record.' There is no blanket response deadline; the only clock is 22.8(4), which caps delay taken to screen a record for confidentiality at twenty calendar days and says it ordinarily should not exceed ten business days.
- O'Brien County is governed by a Board of Supervisors (Iowa's governing body in all 99 counties). No O'Brien County board page was opened — obriencounty.com is the county's Economic Development Corporation site, and the county government site it points to (obriencounty.org) could not be opened. Member names and board size: Not found.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in O'Brien 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