The Detention Center
Woodbury County Jail (Law Enforcement Center)
- Operated byWoodbury County Sheriff's Office
- Detention commandTodd Harlow — Captain, Jail Division
- Mailing addressPO Box 3083, Sioux City, IA 51102
- Jail phone712-279-6040
- Rated capacity498 inmates, per the county's own jail page
- New facilityThe county's jail page describes a new Law Enforcement Center and Jail completed in 2024
- Federal boardingThe jail page states the facility houses federal prisoners under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service; no per-diem rate is published
- Federal boarding revenueSupervisors' minutes of 4/15/2025 record a board vote to increase budgeted revenue for U.S. Marshals inmates by $600,000 for FY26
- Inmate phone vendorNCIC, collect calls (1-800-943-2189); no per-minute rate published
- Commissary depositsInmate Canteen (inmatecanteen.com) or a 24/7 lobby ATM; no price list published
- Video visitationMon-Fri 10:00-11:00 a.m. and 12:30-3:15 p.m.; no fee published
- BondCall 712-279-6040 to verify the amount; cash bonds posted with the Clerk of Court 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays, or at the jail after hours
- What was triedwoodburycountyiowa.gov/sheriff/, /sheriff/jail/, /sheriff/inmates and four sets of Board of Supervisors minutes (2/4/2025, 4/15/2025, 2/24/2026). No IDOC jail inspection report, PREA audit result, death-in-custody report or fee schedule was found. The inmate database the jail page links (injail.wcicc.com) is on the Woodbury County Information & Communication Commission's domain and could not be opened directly.
Source: Woodbury County Sheriff - Jail Division · checked 2026-09-18
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓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 — not published
- ✗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 built2024 - the county's jail page describes a new Law Enforcement Center and Jail completed that year
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds498 (rated capacity, county jail page)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Chad Sheehan
- 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
- Jail commander named by the countyCaptain Todd Harlow, 712-279-6040
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Woodbury 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
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Roster: the county's own jail page publishes an 'Inmates Database' link to injail.wcicc.com, the county communication commission's lookup. The lookup itself could not be opened, so the citation is to the county page that publishes it.
- Capacity: the county publishes a rated capacity of 498 but does not publish a daily population count.
- Budget: the Board of Supervisors' minutes of 2/4/2025 record Correctional Facility, LEC and New LEC Security budget actions (IPERS corrections of $26,598.52 and $56,133.25) and a $50,000 increase in commissary revenue, and a Sheriff Administration increase of $40,000. These are budget amendments recorded in minutes, not a published detention budget document.
- Contracts: the county states it holds federal prisoners for the U.S. Marshals Service and budgeted a $600,000 FY26 revenue increase for them, but publishes no per-diem rate, so the contracts check is recorded as no.
- PREA: the jail page links an Inmate Sexual Misconduct Policy and a Staff on Inmate Sexual Misconduct Policy. Those are policies, not audit results, so the prea 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. 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. Woodbury County does not publish its 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). Five members; the roll call in the minutes of 2/24/2026 records Carper, Dietrich, Nelson and Ung present and Bittinger II absent. First names are not given in the roll call, so no full names are recorded here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Woodbury 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