Anamosa has no roster of its own, so you filter Iowa's statewide search down to this prison using the Location dropdown. Start with a name below and we will find them.
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There is no Anamosa-only lookup. The Iowa Department of Corrections runs one search covering all nine of its prisons, and you narrow it to this one by choosing Anamosa State Penitentiary in the Location dropdown. What comes back is more detailed than most states publish: location, offense, a tentative discharge date and the most recent parole board decision. Two quirks are worth understanding before you rely on it, and both catch families out.
Open Iowa’s statewide offender search and set the Location dropdown to Anamosa State Penitentiary. That is what turns a statewide search into an Anamosa one. You can also search with Pigeonly.
Leave Location on All if you are not certain where your person is. In a system running 28 percent over capacity, people move, and a statewide search tells you where they actually are rather than confirming a guess.
Iowa gives you three name modes, and the third is the one worth knowing:
Starts With is the default and the most forgiving of a partial name.
Matches wants the name exactly.
Sounds Like finds names spelled differently but pronounced the same. Reach for it when you are working from a name somebody read out to you over the phone, or from a spelling nobody in the family agrees on.
You can also filter by sex and by County of Commitment, which is the Iowa county the case came from rather than where the person is held now. Both are useful for cutting down a common surname.
The detail page carries:
Iowa adds a caution of its own next to any parole interview date: contact the Board of Parole staff to confirm it. Take that at face value.
If you find the right name and the location, offense and dates are all empty, that almost always means one thing: they have been released.
Iowa keeps released people in the database rather than removing them, and empties those fields instead. It is not a broken search, and it is not the wrong person.
Iowa’s published disclaimer says information is updated on a weekly basis, and that it may change quickly.
A separate Iowa DOC page tells families a transfer appears within 24 hours of the move. Both are official statements and they do not agree, so we are not going to tell you which to believe.
What matters is the decision it affects. Anamosa is in Jones County, and plenty of families drive a long way to get there. Before you make that drive, call the prison on 319-462-3504 and confirm the person is still there. A search result that might be a week old is not worth a wasted day.
They are still in a county jail. People awaiting trial or sentencing are held by a county, and this search does not reach county custody.
The spelling is different. Switch to Sounds Like, or search the last name alone.
They were released. See the blank record above.
They were transferred. Set Location back to All. Iowa moves people between its nine prisons, and Anamosa’s crowding makes that more likely rather than less.
They are not in Iowa custody at all. There are no federal prisons anywhere in Iowa, so anyone in federal custody appears only in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) locator.
Everything else at this prison runs on it. The mail routing line needs the name and offender number together. A money order that does not carry the offender name and number, plus your own name and full address, is returned to sender. The visitor application asks for it on the first line.
Copy it once, keep it somewhere, and you will not have to search again every time.
6 of 7 questions
Use Iowa's statewide offender search at doc-search.iowa.gov and set the Location dropdown to Anamosa State Penitentiary. There is no separate Anamosa roster. If you are not sure which prison holds them, leave Location on All, because the result will tell you where they actually are.
Inmate SearchThey have most likely been released. Iowa keeps released people in the database and empties the location, offense and date fields rather than deleting the record. A blank result is an answer rather than a failure, though it is worth confirming by phone if a release would surprise you.
Inmate SearchUse the Sounds Like name mode, which finds names spelled differently but pronounced the same. Iowa also offers Starts With, which is the default and handles a partial name, and Matches for an exact one. Adding sex or County of Commitment narrows a common surname further.
Inmate SearchConfirm by phone first. Iowa's search disclaimer says information is updated on a weekly basis, while another Iowa DOC page says a transfer shows within 24 hours. Both are official and they conflict. Call 319-462-3504 before a long drive rather than betting the trip on a result that could be several days old.
Inmate SearchIt shows the most recent decision on their case: the decision type, the decision itself, the date it was made, the effective date, any scheduled interview date and time, and any mandatory minimum. Iowa's own note tells you to contact Board of Parole staff to confirm an interview date rather than relying on what the page shows.
Inmate SearchBecause an arrest does not put someone in Iowa Department of Corrections custody. People awaiting trial or sentencing are held in county jails, which run their own separate rosters. This search covers the nine state prisons and community supervision, and nothing else.
Inmate SearchIowa publishes the numbers daily. On September 9, 2026 Anamosa held 1,293 people against an operational capacity of 908, with 172 in medical or segregation status. Statewide the nine prisons held 9,003 against 6,990, which the department itself describes as 28.80 percent overcrowded. It is worth knowing because crowding is what drives short-notice transfers.
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All information on this page comes directly from official government and facility sources. How we verify information › Last verified September 9, 2026.