Des Moines County Correctional Center Overview
The Des Moines County Correctional Center is operated by the Des Moines County Sheriff's Office as a county jail and local detention facility. The jail holds adults booked and housed by Des Moines County, including pretrial detainees, people serving short county sentences, court-authorized work release inmates, and local arrests waiting for court action or transfer. It is not listed in the official research as a state prison, federal Bureau of Prisons institution, or ICE detention center.
The sheriff's office is responsible for custody and care at the Des Moines County Correctional Center. The jail page describes the facility as a direct-supervision jail that opened in 1995, while the sheriff department overview says the Correctional Center houses 80 inmates. Detailed local classification levels were not published in the official county pages reviewed. For practical lookup purposes, the key split is simple: the Des Moines County Correctional Center handles local jail custody, Iowa Courts Online handles filed court cases, and the Iowa Department of Corrections handles state prison and supervision records after sentencing.
The county jail page shown in the screenshot comes from the official Des Moines County jail information page, which publishes the jail history, room and board fee, work release fee, communication prices, commissary links, and vendor directions.
Those posted details make the county page useful for costs and service channels, but they do not replace a live custody check with the jail or a records request for booking records.
Des Moines County Jail Capacity
Capacity and population figures for the Des Moines County Correctional Center have to be read with care. The jail history says the current facility opened in 1995 as a 68-bed direct-supervision jail. The sheriff department overview separately says the Correctional Center houses 80 inmates. A July 8, 2025 Des Moines County Board of Supervisors department-head update recorded the sheriff stating that the jail population was 89. Census 2020 correctional-population data listed Des Moines Co. Jail at 54.
Those figures are not all the same kind of number. The 68-bed figure is tied to the original 1995 direct-supervision description. The 80-inmate phrasing is the sheriff overview's current public description. The 89 count is a dated meeting note, and the 54 count is a Census 2020 correctional-population count. Because the official material does not publish a current rated-capacity certificate or annual average daily population dashboard, it is best to cite the numbers by source and date rather than label one count as over capacity.
Des Moines County Custody Lookup
No official Des Moines County public online current-inmates roster was located on the county or sheriff pages reviewed. That matters because a search for a person held at the Des Moines County Correctional Center should begin with official channels, not with a third-party jail roster page. For a broader explanation of county jail record access, use the Des Moines County jail inmate records page, but use the jail phone first for same-day custody questions.
- Call the Des Moines County Correctional Center at 319-753-8275 and ask whether the person is currently held at the county jail.
- Contact sheriff records at 319-753-8212 or so-clerical@dmcounty.com for public booking records, incident reports, or records request instructions.
- Search Iowa Courts Online for filed charges after the arrest. A court docket is not real-time jail custody.
- Search the Iowa DOC Offender Search if the person may have been sentenced, transferred, or placed under state supervision.
- Use Iowa VINE for custody or criminal-case notifications after verifying the correct person.
- Use the BOP Inmate Locator or ICE Online Detainee Locator only when federal or immigration custody may be involved.
A city police arrest log can help identify an arresting agency, arrest date, location, incident number, or statute. It does not prove that a person is still in the Des Moines County Correctional Center. Burlington Police and West Burlington Police records should be treated as police-report sources, while the county jail remains the custody source for local detention.
Des Moines County Jail Contact
Use the Bauer Drive address for the Des Moines County Correctional Center, jail-specific questions, inmate mail, and jail custody calls. Use the sheriff administrative office on North Main Street for sheriff records, report copies, and public-records request routing unless staff direct the request to the jail. The county materials list separate addresses for the jail, sheriff office, courthouse, clerk, and county attorney, so do not treat them as one counter.
Des Moines County Correctional Center
3630 Bauer Drive
Burlington, IA 52601
319-753-8275
Call before traveling for custody, visitation, mail, bond, or public-counter questions.
Des Moines County Sheriff's Office
512 N. Main St.
Burlington, IA 52601
319-753-8212
Records and administrative office hours: Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Des Moines County Jail Visits
The official county jail pages reviewed did not publish an in-person visitation schedule, visitor approval process, visit-length table, dress code, child-visitor rules, attorney visit rules, or holiday schedule for the Des Moines County Correctional Center. The jail page does publish video-call pricing and Prodigy account funding information. That is enough to confirm that video calling is a published communication channel, but not enough to create visit days or hours.
| Visit or Contact Type | Published Schedule | Channel or Vendor | Published Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-person visitation | Not published in official sources reviewed | Call the jail at 319-753-8275 | Not published |
| Remote or on-site video calls | Schedule not published in official sources reviewed | Prodigy / ProdigySales.com | $0.35 per minute |
| Phone calls | Not a visit schedule | Prodigy jail communication system | $0.21 per minute |
| Text messaging | Not a visit schedule | Prodigy jail communication system | $0.15 per message |
| Attorney visits | Not published in official sources reviewed | Verify directly with the jail | Not published |
Call before driving to Bauer Drive for a visit. The county materials do not publish parking rules, entrance diagrams, visitor ID rules, or transit instructions for jail visitors.
Des Moines County Mail and Fees
The sheriff FAQ says inmate mail may be sent to the Des Moines County Correctional Center with the inmate's name at the Bauer Drive jail address. No official mail restrictions, book-vendor rules, photo limits, package rules, legal-mail instructions, or scan-and-destroy policy were located in the reviewed county sources. If a mail item is time-sensitive or may include anything beyond a basic letter, call the jail first.
| Service | Official Detail |
|---|---|
| Mail address | Inmate Name, Des Moines County Correctional Center, 3630 Bauer Drive, Burlington, IA 52601 |
| Commissary deposits | JailATM / jailatm.com; inmates may purchase commissary once per week |
| Phone, video, and text funding | ProdigySales.com; Prodigy direct phone for blocking calls is 1-866-797-5578 |
| Room and board | $55 per day under Iowa Code section 356.7 |
| Work release | $20 per working day, deducted from the $55 daily room-and-board fee |
| Fingerprinting | Monday-Friday, 7:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; $20 cash only |
JailATM and Prodigy are separate channels in the county materials. Commissary deposits support store purchases, while Prodigy funds jail communications. A commissary deposit may not create an immediate purchase because the jail page says commissary is purchased once per week.
Des Moines County Booking Records
The official county pages do not publish a step-by-step local booking manual for the Des Moines County Correctional Center. A local booking may involve arrest or transport by the sheriff, Burlington Police, West Burlington Police, or another agency, followed by county jail intake, identity checks, property handling, custody paperwork, and classification. Because those specific steps were not posted as county policy, they should be treated as general jail intake concepts rather than a promise about how every Des Moines County booking is processed.
If a booking record, incident report, or arrest report is not available by phone, the sheriff records process is the public-records fallback. The sheriff records request page says the first 30 minutes of processing time are free, time and materials after that may be charged, and records are ordinarily processed within 10 business days. Requests can be sent to so-clerical@dmcounty.com. The request form says anonymous requests are honored and use of the form is optional, but a specific request is easier to process.
Des Moines County Court and Standards
A person can be in the Des Moines County Correctional Center before a public court docket is easy to find. Iowa Courts Online is the source for filed court cases and docket events, not live jail custody. Once a case is entered, the docket may show charges, filings, hearings, dispositions, and other court activity. Public case documents may require use of a courthouse public access terminal, and questions about a specific filed case belong with the clerk of court rather than jail staff.
Iowa jail standards also shape how the Correctional Center is discussed. Iowa Administrative Code 201 chapter 50 defines capacity, average daily population, inspection duties, housing standards, and incident reporting for county jails. These rules explain why the jail's 68-bed opening description, 80-inmate sheriff overview, and later population notes should be kept distinct unless a current rated-capacity document is available.
Note: Confirm custody, visit rules, and release conditions with the jail or court before traveling or posting bond.
About Des Moines County Correctional Center
The Des Moines County Correctional Center has a local jail history that predates the Bauer Drive building. The official jail page says a 20-bed jail opened in 1890 at High Street and Main Street, where Burlington's current public library stands. About 50 years later, a courthouse was built with a jail that housed around 30 inmates. The current Correctional Center opened in 1995 and became the county's primary local detention facility.
Official program details are limited. The county pages document work release when granted by the court, room and board charges, fingerprinting for employment, commissary purchases, mail routing, and paid phone, video, and text services. They do not publish a full list of education, treatment, reentry, religious, grievance, medical, tablet, or recreation programs. Verified jail services should come from the county's posted material, while unsupported program claims should be checked directly with the sheriff's office or the jail.