Plymouth County Inmate Population Overview
The Plymouth County inmate population is held locally at Plymouth County Jail, the county jail operated by the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Jeff TeBrink. Official county and sheriff sources did not identify a separate county annex, regional jail, state prison, federal prison, or ICE detention facility inside Plymouth County, Iowa. City police agencies such as Le Mars, Akron, Hinton, Kingsley, Merrill, and Remsen appear in the research as arresting or referral agencies, while booking routes back to the county jail when a person is held locally.
That distinction matters because the Plymouth County inmate population does not include every person with a Plymouth County case forever. A person may be booked in the county jail after arrest, released on bond, transferred after sentencing, moved on a warrant, or placed under Iowa Department of Corrections supervision. The county roster is the best first local source for current jail custody, but it is not the right tool for a prison sentence, a federal case, an ICE hold, or a full historical booking file.
Plymouth County Inmate Population Statistics
The strongest local population source is the 2025 PREA final audit for Plymouth County Jail, supported by the sheriff's jail page and the current-only roster PDF inspected in June 2026. The audit reports a designed capacity of 70 beds, a current population of 37 on the audit reporting date, and an average daily population of 35 for the prior 12 months. It also says the jail was not over capacity at any point in that prior 12-month period.
| Measure | Figure | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily population | 35 | 2025 PREA final audit |
| Rated / bed capacity | 70 beds | Sheriff jail page and 2025 PREA final audit |
| Audit-day population | 37 | 2025 PREA final audit |
| Current roster count sample | 33 people listed | Roster PDF printed 06/12/2026 at 7:44 |
| County population context | 25,698 residents | Plymouth County government homepage |
Plymouth County Jail Population Trends
Official local trend data is narrow, but the available figures point in the same direction. The 2025 audit-day count and the prior-year average daily population were both close to half of the jail's design capacity. The inspected 2026 roster snapshot listed fewer people than the 2025 audit-day count. A single roster PDF is only a point-in-time list, so it should not be treated as an annual trend. It still helps show that the public roster is a current custody snapshot rather than a booking archive.
| Date / Period | Population or ADP | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 PREA prior 12 months | 35 ADP | Average daily population, with no over-capacity point reported. |
| 2025 audit reporting date | 37 current population | Facility-characteristics figure from the PREA final audit. |
| 06/12/2026 roster PDF | 33 listed | Current-only roster printed at 7:44, not a full booking history. |
The county's government profile gives Plymouth County a population of 25,698. Using the PREA average daily population, the jail count works out to about 136 people in jail per 100,000 county residents. That rate is a derived local context figure, not a separate official rate table from the sheriff. Statewide context sources such as BJS, Vera, and Prison Policy Initiative can help explain Iowa jail trends, but they should not replace the local Plymouth County audit figures.
Plymouth County Inmate Population Makeup
The 2025 PREA audit gives several local boundaries for who is held in Plymouth County Jail. The jail holds adults age 18 and older, with both men and women included in the population designation. It reports no youthful inmates and three custody or security levels. The sheriff's jail page describes six pods: male general population, male maximum, female general population, female maximum, special status, and work release. The audit uses five housing units for its own reporting, so both descriptions should be read in context.
- Adults only: the audit reports an age range of 18+ and no youthful inmates.
- Men and women: the audit population designation includes both men and women.
- Custody levels: three custody or security levels were reported in the PREA audit.
- Housing design: the public jail page lists six pods with general, maximum, special status, and work release categories.
- Unpublished splits: race, charge level, pretrial status, and held-for-other-agency counts were not found in official local sources.
Plymouth County Jail Capacity
The Plymouth County inmate population was below the jail's design capacity in the available local sources. The PREA audit says the facility was designed for 70 beds and had an average daily population of 35 during the prior 12 months. That is 50 percent of design capacity. The audit-day population of 37 equals about 53 percent of design capacity, while the 06/12/2026 roster count of 33 equals about 47 percent. These percentages are derived from the official capacity and count figures.
Population note: No official Plymouth County overcrowding litigation, consent decree, new jail construction plan, or recent jail closure was located in the researched county, sheriff, or DOC sources.
Laws on Plymouth County Jail Data
Iowa law sets the public-record and jail-standards framework around the Plymouth County inmate population. The county roster is a local sheriff publication, but the broader rules come from Iowa public-records law, criminal-history law, jail standards, and state inspection duties. The sheriff's public-records page adds the local route: requests for reports and records may be made by phone, U.S. mail, email, or in person, then reviewed by the sheriff with reasonable charges and response time.
Key Statutes:
Iowa Code § 22.2 gives the right to examine, copy, publish, or disseminate public records unless another law restricts access.
Iowa Code § 692.1 defines arrest data and correctional data, including status and location data for people supervised by a county sheriff or DOC.
Iowa Code § 356.36 requires minimum standards for Iowa jails and county detention facilities.
Iowa Code § 356.43 requires jail inspections and filing of inspection reports with local and state officials.
Iowa's DCRA plan cites Iowa's autopsy requirement for deaths in prison, jail, correctional institution, or police custody when no natural disease process accounts for death.
Plymouth County State Prison Search
A person sentenced from Plymouth County to state prison moves out of the county roster system. The correct statewide source is the Iowa DOC Offender Search, which can be searched by name, offender number, sex, location, offense, county of commitment, and name-matching option. The DOC locator also includes Plymouth as a county-of-commitment choice, which helps when a prison case started in Plymouth County District Court.
The Iowa DOC Districts & Prisons page lists Iowa's prison institutions and community-based corrections districts. No Iowa state prison was located inside Plymouth County, so the state prison portion of a Plymouth County case is a lookup channel, not a local facility page. DOC family-services pages should be used for prison visiting, prison mail, prison money, and prison communication after transfer. Those rules are separate from Plymouth County Jail's JailATM and Reliance systems.
The Iowa DOC Districts & Prisons page is a useful visual reference for where state facilities sit in the corrections system.
That statewide list helps separate sentenced Iowa DOC custody from the current-only Plymouth County Jail roster.
Search Plymouth County Inmate Population
The official Plymouth County roster channel is the sheriff's Inmate Roster page. It is not a live name-search portal. The page lists dated PDF rosters, and the inspected sample PDF is titled "PLYMOUTH CO. SHERIFF'S OFFICE Inmate Roster - Current Only." For current jail custody, start with the newest date-labeled PDF and use the browser or PDF find tool if the list is long.
Use the roster as a current custody source, not a full case file. The sample roster showed booking date and time, cell, inmate name, ID number, and age. It did not show charges, bond, mugshots, court dates, arresting agency, physical description, or a clickable inmate profile. If the person is missing, they may have bonded out, been released, been transferred, not yet appeared on a new PDF, or be held in a different system.
- Open the official sheriff inmate roster page and choose the newest date-labeled PDF.
- Use PDF find for the last name, then check name spelling because the sample roster uses last-name-first, all-caps format.
- Read across the row for booking date, cell code, name, jail ID number, and age.
- Call the jail or sheriff's non-emergency line if the arrest is recent, the PDF seems stale, or the person is not listed.
- Use sheriff records, Iowa Courts Online, Iowa DOC, BOP, ICE, or IowaVINE when the roster does not answer the custody question.
Plymouth County Jail Roster Fields
The roster inspection found a PDF list, not a search form. There are no Search, Submit, Reset, Advanced Search, sort, export, tab, pagination, login, or registration controls visible in the captured research. The public action is to open a dated PDF. From there, the useful fields are the columns printed in the roster itself.
| Field Label | Type | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dated PDF links | Link list | n/a | Choose the newest roster date for current custody. |
| Date Booked | Roster PDF column | n/a | Observed as month/day/year with booking time. |
| In Cell | Roster PDF column | n/a | Short housing code such as WR3, FG2, GA6, or MX8. |
| Inmate Name | Roster PDF column | n/a | All-caps last-name-first format. |
| ID Number | Roster PDF column | n/a | Six-digit local jail ID with leading zeros. |
| Age | Roster PDF column | n/a | Numeric age in years. |
Plymouth County Released Records
The public roster is labeled current-only, so it should not be used as a complete released-inmate archive. Older dated PDFs on the roster page may work as short-term snapshots, but the research does not support promising a full history. Historical booking records, reports, or booking-photo requests should go through the Plymouth County Sheriff's public-records process. The sheriff page says requests may be made by telephone, U.S. mail, email, or in person during regular business hours. It also says requests are reviewed by the sheriff and may involve reasonable charges, including research time.
For a case that moved from arrest to prosecution, court records are separate from jail records. Iowa Courts Online and the Plymouth County Clerk of District Court are the right sources for filed charges, hearing dates, bond orders, dispositions, and court financial obligations. The jail can confirm custody and some booking facts, but the court system controls the case docket once a complaint, information, indictment, or other filing opens the case.
Plymouth County Inmate Record Fields
A public Plymouth County inmate record from the current-only roster is intentionally thin. That can be useful for fast custody checks, but it also means many common questions need a second source. Charges and bond may appear in sheriff press releases or court records, yet they were not shown in the inspected roster PDF. Mugshots also were not shown there.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Date Booked | The booking date and time for the jail intake event. |
| In Cell | A public cell or housing code, without a full public code key. |
| Inmate Name | The person's name in last-name-first format. |
| ID Number | The local Plymouth County Jail ID number. |
| Age | Age in years. |
| Printed | The date and time the PDF roster was generated. |
Plymouth County Jail vs Prison
The most common search error is using the wrong system. Plymouth County Jail is for local county custody, including adult pretrial detainees, sentenced county inmates, work release inmates, and some holds awaiting transfer. Iowa DOC custody is for sentenced prisoners and people under DOC or district correctional supervision. Federal and ICE custody are separate again.
| County Jail | State Prison / DOC | Federal or ICE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who is covered | Current Plymouth County Jail inmates. | Sentenced Iowa offenders and DOC supervision cases. | Federal inmates, USMS cases, or ICE detainees. |
| Run by | Plymouth County Sheriff's Office. | Iowa Department of Corrections. | BOP, USMS, ICE, or related federal offices. |
| Where to look | Dated sheriff roster PDFs. | Iowa DOC Offender Search. | BOP locator, USMS Northern District, or ICE ODLS. |
| What it shows | Limited current roster fields. | Public offender and supervision data. | Locator fields, custody status, and federal routing data. |
Plymouth County Federal Lookup
Federal and immigration searches sit outside the Plymouth County inmate population unless the person is physically held in the county jail. BOP's locator covers federal inmates from 1982 to the present and allows name or number searches. Plymouth County is in the U.S. Marshals Northern District of Iowa, with Sioux City and Cedar Rapids district contacts listed in the research. ICE's Online Detainee Locator System uses either A-number and country of birth or name, country of birth, and birth date.
The BOP name-search page is the federal locator route when a Plymouth County arrest becomes a federal sentence or a federal custody question.
Federal locators do not replace the county roster for current local custody, and they should not be treated as mugshot galleries.
Plymouth County Detention Facility
The facility map for this project has one local detention facility. Other systems, including Iowa DOC, BOP, USMS, ICE, and IowaVINE, are lookup or notification channels rather than Plymouth County facility pages. The local facility page gives the jail address, phone, housing, visitation, mail, money, roster, and PREA details in one place.
- Plymouth County Jail - county jail in Le Mars for adult pretrial detainees, sentenced county inmates, work release inmates, and holds awaiting transfer.
Plymouth County Inmate Population FAQ
How large is the Plymouth County inmate population?
The best local official figures are the 2025 PREA audit numbers for Plymouth County Jail: 70-bed design capacity, 35 average daily population for the prior 12 months, and 37 current population on the audit reporting date. The inspected 06/12/2026 roster PDF listed 33 people.
How do I search Plymouth County inmates?
Open the sheriff's Inmate Roster page, choose the newest dated PDF, and use the PDF find tool for the person's last name. If the person is not listed, call the jail or check court, DOC, federal, ICE, or IowaVINE channels based on the custody situation.
Does the Plymouth County roster show mugshots?
No mugshots were shown in the inspected current-only roster PDF. Booking-photo requests should go through the sheriff's public-records channel, subject to Iowa open-records and criminal-history limits.
Where are court charges after an arrest?
Court charges are not shown in the inspected roster PDF. Use Iowa Courts Online and the Plymouth County Clerk of District Court for filed charges, hearings, bond orders, dispositions, and court financial records.