The Detention Center
Winneshiek County Jail
- Operated byWinneshiek County Sheriff's Office
- Jail address400 Claiborne Drive, Decorah, IA 52101
- Beds40-bed facility, per the county's own jail page
- OpenedOctober 2000, per the county's jail page
- Staffing13 full-time jailers, per the county's jail page
- Room and board charged to inmates$70.00 per day
- Phone and video visitsSet up through a CIDNET account (1-866-476-6723); no per-minute or per-visit rate published
- Commissary depositsBy mail, jail kiosk, or jailatm.com; no price list published
- BondCash bond taken at the courthouse second floor during business hours, at the jail after hours, or through jailatm.com
- Holds for other agenciesThe jail page states the facility houses overflow inmates for other jurisdictions, and the county's current-inmate roster flags entries as held for other agencies including Black Hawk and Chickasaw counties. No per-diem rate is published.
- Inspection reports publishedThe sheriff's Jail Reports page posts Iowa Department of Corrections jail inspection reports for 2019, 2021 and 2022, a 2018 Disability Rights Iowa monitoring visit letter, and Iowa Board of Health reports for 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026
Source: Winneshiek County Jail · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
6/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✓Independent inspection
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtOpened October 2000
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds40
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dan Marx
- 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
- Office address400 Claiborne Drive, Decorah, IA 52101
- Office phone563-382-4268; jail 563-387-4096
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Winneshiek County Sheriff · 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
- This is one of the few Iowa counties that publishes its own copy of the IDOC jail inspection report. The sheriff's Jail Reports page (https://winneshiekcounty.iowa.gov/departments/sheriff/jail-reports) posts Iowa Department of Corrections jail inspection reports for 2019, 2021 and 2022, plus Iowa Board of Health reports for 2022 through 2026 and a 2018 Disability Rights Iowa monitoring visit letter.
- The county also posted the 2022 inspection as a news item at https://winneshiekcounty.iowa.gov/spotlight/2022/2022-iowa-department-of-correction-jail-inspection-report. That page records the inspection date as September 15, 2022 and the inspector as Delbert G. Longley, Chief Jail Inspector, and quotes the report: 'Winneshiek County Jail is a clean, well-managed, well-maintained facility', documentation was 'complete and was readily assessable for inspection', and it was 'a pleasure to work with the professional staff.'
- The underlying report PDF linked from that news item (wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Winneshiek-2022A.pdf) could not be opened from here, so rated capacity and the population on the day of inspection are not recorded from the report itself. The 40-bed figure comes from the county's jail page.
- Budget: the county's FY2019-2020 annual financial report shows SHERIFF'S OFFICE $1,551,478.57 and JAIL EXPENSE $1,569,164.57. That is the most recent county budget document that could be opened; a current-year detention budget was not located.
- Fees: the county publishes a $70.00 per day room-and-board charge to inmates, but publishes no phone, video-visit or commissary rate, so the fees check is recorded as no.
- 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. 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 - which is why Winneshiek posting its own copy is unusual.
- 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). Five members, elected by district. The county's FY2019-2020 annual financial report lists John Beard (1st District), Floyd Ashbacher (2nd District, Chairman), Shirley Vermace (3rd District), Dan Langreck (4th District, Vice Chairman) and Mark Vick (5th District), with terms ending Dec. 31, 2022 or Dec. 31, 2024. Those terms have since run, so this is a historical roster, not a statement of who serves now. The board's own page (winneshiekcounty.iowa.gov/departments/board-of-supervisors) could not be opened.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Winneshiek 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