How to Send Money to Clarinda Correctional Facility

One Lockbox for the Whole State

Iowa centralized offender banking. Every deposit for all nine prisons is received and handled at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, and the department states plainly that incoming money will not be accepted at or by any other location.

IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account
1550 L Street, Suite B
Fort Dodge, IA 50501

Fort Dodge is a different prison, roughly three hours north of Clarinda, and none of that matters to you. It is a postal address rather than somewhere you go.

Money orders can no longer be dropped off at any institution, which is the second half of the same change. Bringing one to a visit at Clarinda achieves nothing, and the visit room takes nothing but a Debitek-style vending arrangement in any case.

The Four Details That Keep It From Bouncing

The deposit must be a cashier’s check or money order. Nothing else is accepted by post.

Make it payable to: IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account.

And write all four of these on it:

1. the offender name
2. the offender number
3. the sender’s name
4. the sender’s complete address

Iowa adds a fifth instruction that sounds like a formality: all writing should be legible. The department states that a deposit failing these guidelines is returned to the sender by post, which costs you the postage and your person several weeks.

Three Vendors, and What They Charge

Access Corrections publishes the lowest rates Iowa lists. Online at accesscorrections.com from $3.49 on a Visa or Mastercard. By phone on 1-866-345-1884 from $4.49. The same rates apply from inside a CorrLinks account, which is convenient if you already use one for messages.

Cash, with no card at all: CashPayToday at a flat $6.95, in shops including Dollar General, Family Dollar and Kum & Go, or ACE Cash Express at a flat $5.95. Cash transactions cap at $900. Access Corrections says funds usually move in real time and are available within 24 hours.

JPay costs more. Online at JPay.com, $3.95 to $10.95 by amount; by phone on 1-800-574-5729, $4.95 to $11.95. Cash at a MoneyGram agent, including Walmart, CVS, 7-Eleven and Albertsons, is a flat $8.95, and up to $5,000 goes in a single transaction. Iowa notes money sent before 11:45 AM is generally available the next day.

Western Union runs through send2corrections.com, the Send2Corrections app, or 1-800-634-3422 option 2, using the commissary or inmate number and the facility name. Iowa publishes no fee for it.

Restitution Goes to a Third Prison

Not Clarinda, and not Fort Dodge.

Iowa State Penitentiary administers all restitution, court filing fees and child support statewide:

Iowa State Penitentiary
PO Box 316
Fort Madison, IA 52627-0316

Iowa’s reason is that a payment plan then survives a transfer between prisons rather than being rebuilt each time.

Calls Are Funded Somewhere Else Again

Worth spelling out because Iowa’s system spreads across three prisons and none of them is this one.

Commissary money goes to Fort Dodge. Phone money goes to Iowa State Penitentiary. Restitution goes to Iowa State Penitentiary. Clarinda handles none of it.

A family deposit to a phone account has 7 percent sales tax deducted, so Iowa’s worked example is that $10 becomes a $9.35 credit. When the person inside transfers their own money instead, 7 percent is added, making $10 cost $10.70. The minimum is $1, the transfer is one-way, and unused phone money is credited back on release.

Why Money Can Sit Unspent

Iowa’s funds policy states that weekly spending limits and possession limits are established and posted throughout the institution. Real, enforced, and published nowhere online for Clarinda.

If a deposit has not been used, a weekly cap is the likeliest reason rather than anything going wrong. The person inside can read the figure even though you cannot.

Balances, Caps, and the Commissary Limit

Cash caps at $900 through Access Corrections and $5,000 through JPay. Past those two figures, Clarinda publishes none of the following:

• The weekly commissary spending limit here
• How long a mailed money order takes to appear on the account
• Any maximum on a single mailed deposit
• A care package price list. Iowa defers to its prison industries vendor and notes institutions may limit how many a person receives
• What happens to a balance on transfer or release

Ask When You Ring 712-695-7140

1. What is the weekly commissary spending limit here?
2. How long after Fort Dodge receives a money order does it reach the account?
3. Is there a cap on a single mailed deposit?
4. Do they have phone credit already, or does that need sending to Fort Madison?
5. How many care packages a year can they receive?
6. What happens to the balance if they transfer or are released?