Search Madison County Jail Inmates

Madison County Jail Overview

The Madison County Sheriff's Office identifies Madison County Jail as the county's jail service in Winterset. The jail is a county-run, short-term local detention facility, not a state prison, federal prison, immigration detention center, or separate city jail. Sheriff Jason Barnes is listed as sheriff, and Denny Thompson is listed as Jail Administrator. The sheriff page also names jail staff, but the public source does not say that any named staff member personally handles each roster, mail, visit, or record request.

Madison County Jail custody is local. The facility holds pretrial detainees, people serving short county sentences, people held for court, and people listed on the sheriff's current booking widget. Winterset Police use the same public-safety address, but no separate Winterset city jail or municipal jail roster was located. That makes Madison County Jail the main local custody point for a person booked after a Madison County arrest, unless the case moves to another county, state prison, federal custody, or immigration custody.

The official sheriff page is the source for the jail's basic operating facts and jail role. It says the sheriff is custodian of the county jail and responsible for prisoners committed to the sheriff until discharged by law. It also says the sheriff transports people as directed by court order. In plain terms, the jail is the local custody site during the county case stage, while court records, DOC records, BOP records, and ICE records sit in separate systems.

The official sheriff page shows the jail service, staff list, visitation facts, and county contact details.

That screenshot is useful because it ties the jail name, sheriff office, jail capacity, and Sunday visitation rules to one official county source.

Madison County Jail Capacity

Madison County Jail is small by official description. The sheriff page lists "Madison County Jail - 12 beds," which is the best official bed-count source located for the facility. The public roster snapshot inspected on June 12-13, 2026 showed six visible inmate cards in the GMD Solutions booking widget. That six-card figure is only a point-in-time visible roster count. It is not an average daily population, year-end count, annual booking number, or official population report.

The county did not publish a local average daily population, annual booking total, length-of-stay report, offense-class breakdown, demographic table, held-for-other-agency count, or multi-year jail trend table in the sources reviewed. The public roster also does not show sex, age, race, date of birth, arresting agency, release date, or custody status history. Those gaps matter because a visible roster can change fast after court, bond, transfer, or release.

Note: Treat any public roster count as a changing snapshot unless the sheriff's office publishes a formal population report.

Madison County Jail Roster Lookup

The correct local lookup for Madison County Jail is the official Madison County inmate roster page. That county page embeds the GMD Solutions Madison booking widget. The widget works as a current-inmate listing. It did not show public search boxes, filters, a released-inmates tab, a sort option, pagination, or a posted refresh schedule in the inspected version.

Because the Madison County Jail roster is a scrollable card list, the search process is different from a database search. Review the cards by name, booking date, ID number, charge, bond amount, and cell field. If the widget area is blank, wait for the embedded frame to load or try the direct widget link. If a person is not shown, call the sheriff's office before assuming the person was never booked. The person may have been released, transferred, committed to Iowa DOC custody, held federally, or listed in a court system instead of the current county jail listing.

1. Open the official Madison County inmate roster page and let the embedded roster load.
2. Scroll the current cards because no public name-search field was visible.
3. Match the person by name, booking date, ID number, charge text, bond amount, and cell field.
4. Check any "Additional Charges" block before reading the bond line as complete.
5. If the person is missing, call the sheriff or check Iowa Courts Online, Iowa DOC, BOP, ICE, and VINELink.

The GMD Solutions widget is the roster display used by the county page.

The card layout shows why a user must review each current listing rather than type a name into a visible search form.

Madison County Jail Contact

For custody status, jail roster questions, visit confirmation, and local mail-format questions, use the sheriff's office contact channel published by Madison County. The sheriff page lists one public-safety address for the sheriff and jail and gives a main phone number and fax number. It does not publish a separate jail-records line, booking desk number, lobby schedule, bond counter hours, or after-hours visitation contact.

The same address is also used by the Winterset Police Department, but no separate city jail page was located. For a person arrested in Winterset or elsewhere in the county, start with Madison County Jail custody, then check the court and state systems if the jail cannot confirm a current booking. For incident or report copies, the sheriff page links a documents and forms portal and a request document, but the extracted source did not publish booking-record fees, processing times, or payment rules.

Madison County Jail Directions

Madison County Jail and the sheriff's office are listed at 1012 N John Wayne Drive, PO Box 517, Winterset, Iowa 50273. The official sources reviewed did not publish a separate visitor entrance, visitor parking map, public-transit route, locker rule, or ADA entrance note. Use the street address for mapping, but call the sheriff's office before arrival if the visit, bond question, record pickup, or custody check depends on a specific lobby process.

Visitors without a vehicle should confirm local transportation in advance because no official transit route to the jail was located. Visitors who need an accommodation should also call ahead because the sheriff page did not publish an ADA visitor entrance detail. The same public-safety address is tied to the Winterset Police Department, so use the jail or sheriff contact channel for custody questions instead of assuming city police operate a separate holding facility.

Madison County Jail Visits

Madison County publishes a simple visit schedule for the county jail. Regular jail visitation is on Sunday afternoon. Visitors must be at least 18 years old and must have a current photo ID. Registration is first come, so arriving without confirmation can be risky if the person has been released, transported to court, moved, or affected by a schedule change. Special visit requests are directed to the Jail Administrator or Sheriff, not to an online scheduling portal.

The research did not locate official parking instructions, a public-transit route, locker rules, dress code, ADA visitor-entry details, holiday visit changes, or attorney-visit hours. Call the jail before traveling, especially because Madison County Jail is a small 12-bed facility and court movement can change who is available for a visit.

Note: The official visitor rules are brief, so confirm custody, visit status, and entry requirements before leaving for the jail.

Madison County Jail Mail

Madison County did not publish an inmate-specific mail format beyond the sheriff and jail address. Use the published address as the starting point, but call the jail before sending mail, books, photos, cards, money orders, legal mail, or packages. A county jail may reject mail that lacks the required name, inmate ID, return address, or approved format, and the Madison County public sources reviewed did not list those rules.

No official online deposit vendor, lobby kiosk, phone-payment vendor, commissary provider, tablet program, video visitation provider, deposit limit, or fee schedule was found for Madison County Jail. Do not assume a national jail vendor applies here. Iowa DOC family-service rules also should not be applied to this jail because state-prison mail and money systems are separate from the county jail.

Madison County Jail Booking

The county does not publish a detailed Madison County Jail intake manual. The public roster still shows several intake results: an ID number, booking date, mugshot, name, primary charge, bond amount, cell code, and sometimes additional charges. Those public fields show what becomes visible after booking, but they do not show every internal intake record. Fingerprints, property inventory, medical screening, classification notes, address, arrest narrative, court date, and release status were not visible in the roster widget.

A local custody path may begin with the Madison County Sheriff's Office, Winterset Police Department, another law-enforcement agency, or a court order. After booking, the jail record and the court record serve different purposes. The roster charge is a custody field. The formal case record, hearings, filings, bond order, and disposition belong in Iowa Courts Online and the Madison County Clerk of Court channel.

Booking

The jail intake step that creates a custody record, photo, charge entry, and local identifier.

Bond

Money or conditions set by the court for release while a case is pending.

Hold

A separate legal reason that may keep a person in custody even when one charge line shows a low or zero bond.

DOC custody

Iowa Department of Corrections custody or supervision after a state sentence or commitment.

Madison County Custody Channels

If a person is not visible on the Madison County Jail roster, the next lookup depends on the custody type. A current county booking may require a phone call to the sheriff. A filed criminal case belongs in Iowa Courts Online. A sentenced state offender belongs in the Iowa DOC Offender Search. A federal prisoner belongs in the BOP inmate locator, and an immigration detainee may require the ICE Online Detainee Locator. Iowa VINELink is also available for custody and case notification.

For a focused walk-through of current roster fields, the broader Madison County jail inmate records page explains how the public card fields fit together. For booking photos, the Madison County jail mugshots page covers what the current widget shows and what was not published about photo retention.

About Madison County Jail

Madison County Jail sits within the county's broader public-safety and court system in Winterset, the county seat. The county is small, and the public jail facts are correspondingly narrow: the sheriff page gives the operator, sheriff, jail administrator, address, phone, bed count, staff names, and Sunday visit rules. It does not publish a construction history, pod layout, medical policy, grievance form, education program, work-release program, religious-service schedule, or local inspection report in the sources reviewed.

Iowa jail operations are also shaped by statewide law. Iowa Code chapter 356 governs jails and municipal holding facilities, while Iowa Administrative Code chapter 201-50 provides jail-facility standards on topics such as jail administration, inspections, physical requirements, personnel, admission, classification, security, hygiene, and operations. Those rules are a state framework, not proof of a specific Madison County program or vendor.

The public roster exists under the county sheriff's official inmate roster page, while records access can also involve Iowa Code chapter 22 when a person seeks a record copy that is not visible online. Chapter 22 does not mean every law-enforcement or jail record must be released in full, because confidential-record and investigative exceptions can apply. For a booking photo, report, or jail record that no longer appears in the current roster, identify the person, date, booking or incident number if known, and the exact record requested.