The Detention Center
Washington County Jail
- Operated byWashington County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address2185 Lexington Boulevard, Washington, IA 52353
- Jail phone319-653-5902
- Current bedsNot published - the county's Jail page is a historical narrative and gives only figures from 2005
- Historical capacityThe county's Jail page records that under the jail standards then proposed the facility 'could be opened for 11 inmates', and that a variance was sought and approved in 2005 allowing 15
- Room and boardThe county's Jail page records a $25 per day fee charged to sentenced inmates, 'intended to help defray some of the ongoing expenses associated with housing inmates', dating from October 2002
- Original buildingThe Public Safety Center was built in the 1960s; the page records new jail construction beginning in September 2006
- What was triedThe domain given for this county, co.washington.ia.us, could not be fetched at all (robots.txt could not be retrieved). The county's current domain is washingtoncounty.iowa.gov; its /158/Sheriff and /175/Jail pages were opened. /Directory.aspx?did=6 and the facilities detail page for the jail could not be opened. No inmate roster, current capacity, bond-posting guidance, inmate phone or commissary rate, detention budget, current IDOC inspection report, PREA audit result, boarding contract or death-in-custody report was found.
Source: Washington 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 builtThe Public Safety Center was built in the 1960s; the county's jail history page records new jail construction beginning September 2006
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found for the current facility; the county's history page cites 11 under the then-proposed standards and a 2005 variance for 15
Since then
- New jail construction began September 2006, per the county's jail history page
The Sheriff
Sheriff Jared M. Schneider
- Runs the jailYes - Iowa Code 356.2 gives the sheriff charge and custody of the prisoners in the county jail; repeated at Iowa Code 331.653(35)
- How the office is filledElected county-wide to a four-year term (Iowa Code 331.651); on a vacancy the first deputy assumes the office
- Chief DeputyShawn Ellingson
- Office address2181 Lexington Blvd., Washington, IA 52353; phone 319-653-2107
- Jail address and phone2185 Lexington Blvd., Washington, IA 52353; 319-653-5902
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Washington County Sheriff's Office · 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) sends the governor two nominees, the governor appoints one, and the judge then faces a yes/no retention election and six-year terms. There are no contested judicial elections in Iowa. 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, and 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 officer got the job. Judges are state judicial officers, not county officials.
Magistrate - sets bail at first appearance (Iowa Code 804.22)
- Not found
Iowa District Court - district judges
- 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
- Washington County's Jail page is a history rather than current operational information. It chronicles events from July 2000 to September 2006 in reverse order, and it does name the state jail inspector of that period, Mike Richardson, and records that the facility was closed by him on July 1, 2000 and later approved to reopen for a two-year term with a variance allowing 15 inmates rather than 11. That is the county publishing an account of past state jail inspection decisions, not a current inspection report, so the inspections check is recorded as no. Nothing here is characterised as a violation - these are the county's own words about what the inspector decided.
- The page also names Chief Jailer Stan Stoops, but only as the officeholder in 2005. The current jail administrator is not published, so jail_administrator is left null and the elected sheriff is treated as the jailer under Iowa Code 356.2.
- Domain note: the address given for this county, co.washington.ia.us, could not be fetched (its robots.txt would not load). The county's working domain is washingtoncounty.iowa.gov.
- Iowa inspects every jail annually - Iowa Admin. Code 201-50.3 requires the chief jail inspector to visit and inspect each jail in the state at least annually, and rule 201-50.2(3) allows the visit to be unannounced. But Iowa Code 356.43(4) routes the report only to the IDOC director, the sheriff, the local governing body and the county attorney, and nothing requires anyone to post it. Washington County does not publish a current copy on its own site.
- 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, assault injury or use of force, and Iowa Code 127.3(1) requires an autopsy for a death in a jail where no natural disease process accounts for it, but neither produces a public number.
- Population: 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. No evidence was found that IDOC publishes it.
- Open records: Iowa Code ch. 22. The right is at 22.2; there is no blanket response deadline, and the only clock is 22.8(4), which caps a confidentiality-screening delay at twenty calendar days and says it ordinarily should not exceed ten business days.
- Board of Supervisors (Iowa counties are governed by a board of supervisors, not commissioners). No supervisor names or board page could be confirmed: the county's older domain co.washington.ia.us could not be fetched at all, and only two pages on the current domain washingtoncounty.iowa.gov could be opened.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Washington 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