The Detention Center
Not found on any Wayne County page opened
- Operated byNot found
- JailNo jail page, inmate roster, capacity figure, bond guidance, fee schedule, inspection report or boarding arrangement is published on waynecounty.iowa.gov
- Where prisoners goNot found - no county page states whether Wayne County holds its own prisoners or boards them elsewhere, so nothing is asserted here
- Domain correctionThe domain waynecountyiowa.com, given as this county's site, is not a Wayne County government site; it resolves to an unrelated commercial blog. The county's actual site is waynecounty.iowa.gov.
- What was triedwaynecounty.iowa.gov home page, waynecounty.iowa.gov/county/ (the full county office directory) and waynecountyelections.iowa.gov/elected_officials/county/. The board page waynecounty.iowa.gov/board-of-supervisors/ and the sheriff's own domain wayneso.org could not be opened.
Source: Wayne County - County Offices · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗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
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Keith Davis
- Runs the jailIowa Code 356.2 gives the sheriff charge and custody of the prisoners in the county jail; Wayne County publishes nothing about a jail on its own site, so whether a jail is operated here could not be confirmed from a county page
- How the office is filledElected county-wide to a four-year term (Iowa Code 331.651); the county elections site gives his term as ending in 2028
- Office phone641-872-1566
- Chief DeputyTyler Moore
- StaffKim Gibson, civil secretary, plus four additional deputies, per the county offices page
- Separate sheriff domainThe county elections site lists the sheriff's email on wayneso.org, indicating the sheriff's office runs its own website; wayneso.org could not be opened from here
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Wayne County - County Offices · 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
- Wayne County's own website carries no sheriff or jail department page at all - the sheriff appears only as a line in the county office directory. All ten checks are therefore recorded as no, and no claim is made about whether the county operates a jail or where its prisoners are held.
- The sheriff's office appears to maintain a separate site at wayneso.org (inferred only from the sheriff's email address as published on the county elections site). That domain could not be opened from here, so nothing from it is recorded or cited. A sheriff's office on its own domain would count as first-party publishing, so this county is worth rechecking when that site can be reached.
- 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. Wayne County does not publish any such report 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). Three members: Lance Lange (term ends 2026), Chris Moore (term ends 2026, listed as chair on the county offices page) and Todd Wilson (term ends 2028), all serving four-year terms. Courthouse: 100 N Lafayette Street, Corydon, IA 50060.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Wayne 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