Iowa's funds policy makes ICIW responsible for depositing intake money for every female incarcerated individual in the state, and that is the only money handled at Mitchellville. Send photos and letters too.
Send photos and letters too
ICIW handles money once, at the start. Iowa’s funds policy makes this facility responsible for depositing intake money for every woman entering the prison system, which is what happens to the cash she arrives with from a county jail. Everything after that goes elsewhere. Deposits from outside are banked at Fort Dodge, phone credit and restitution are administered at Fort Madison, and Iowa takes a series of deductions from outside money before any of it reaches her spending balance.
Iowa’s funds policy, AD-FM-11, states that the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women or its designee deposits all intake money for every female incarcerated individual in the state.
That answers a question families ask in the first week. The department’s guidance for people preparing for admission says a new arrival may bring a bible, an address book, a small amount of photos, and any cash that she has, and that everything else must be collected by family or discarded at the county jail beforehand.
So the cash in her county property is not lost. It travels with her and ICIW banks it.
Iowa centralised offender banking. Deposits for all nine prisons are received and handled at Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, and the department states 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 men’s prison about two hours northwest of Mitchellville, and none of that matters. It is a postal address rather than a place to visit, and using it does not mean anything about where she is held.
Money orders are no longer accepted at any institution, so bringing one to a Saturday visit achieves nothing.
The deposit has to be a cashier’s check or money order. Nothing else goes by post.
Make it payable to: IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account.
Write all four of these on it:
Iowa’s funds policy adds the rule that returns most failed deposits: money orders and cashier’s checks may not be sent with any other correspondence. A money order tucked into a card comes back. So does anything illegible or missing a detail. Deposits over $1,000 are copied to institutional security staff for approval before they post.
Iowa also warns that if you send funds electronically, expect the process for creating a new account in the banking system to take about a week.
Iowa spreads its money system across three prisons and it is easy to send the right payment to the wrong one.
| Payment | Destination |
|---|---|
| Intake cash | Deposited by ICIW |
| Commissary deposits | IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account, Fort Dodge |
| Phone credit | Iowa State Penitentiary, Fort Madison |
| Restitution, court filing fees, child support | Iowa State Penitentiary, Fort Madison |
Iowa State Penitentiary
PO Box 316
Fort Madison, IA 52627-0316
Iowa’s reason for centralising restitution is that a payment plan then survives a transfer rather than being rebuilt each time.
Access Corrections publishes Iowa’s lowest rates. Online at accesscorrections.com from $3.49 on a Visa or Mastercard, by phone on 1-866-345-1884 from $4.49, and at the same rates from inside a CorrLinks account. Cash without a card: 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 caps at $900, and money sent before midnight is generally available the next business day.
JPay costs more. Online at JPay.com, $3.95 to $10.95 by amount, or 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, taking up to $5,000 in one transaction. Money sent before 11:45 PM is generally available the next business day.
Western Union Quick Collect needs exact entries Iowa publishes and that fail quietly if you improvise. Pay to Iowa Department of Corrections, code city IOWADOC, state IA, and for the sender’s account number use the ID number followed by the last name, so 1234567Jones. Funds post three times a day, the last around 3:30 PM central time.
Money you send is not the money that lands, and this appears in Iowa’s funds policy rather than on any public page.
| Deduction | Rate on outside money |
|---|---|
| State restitution | 20% |
| Federal restitution | 20% |
| State court filing fees | 10% of the balance owed |
| Federal filing fees | 20% |
| Mandatory savings | 10% |
| Department sanctions | 20% |
The savings deduction stops once the savings balance reaches $100. The rest depend on what she owes.
A 6 percent pretax surcharge, which Iowa calls pay for stay, is added to every commissary order. It is not charged on stamped envelopes, postcards, money sent home, legal copies and fees, a driver’s licence, postage, treatment or educational purchases, religious donations, the flower fund, or a medical co-pay.
Exempt from the deductions: money the warden designates for medical costs and funeral trip costs, transportation fees, vendor refunds, property tort claims, VA benefits, and anything directed into the telephone fund.
A deposit to Fort Dodge does not fund calls. Phone money goes to Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, posted as a money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form.
7 percent sales tax comes off a family deposit, so Iowa’s worked example is that $10 becomes a $9.35 credit. When the person inside transfers her 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.
Iowa publishes what somebody leaves with, which is unusual and worth knowing at a prison where release rather than transfer is the usual exit.
Gate money is $50 for work release and $100 for all other qualifying releases, and a person is eligible only once in a 12-month period. Iowa provides bus fare to any destination inside the state, and anything beyond the Iowa border is at her own cost.
Release funds go onto a MasterCard release card, which costs $5 to issue and holds up to $9,700.
Two smaller things: a vending card holds at most $75, takes one load a day, carries the 6 percent surcharge and costs $2.25 to replace, and Iowa says any balance left on it is not refunded at release absent unusual circumstances. An overdraft attempt costs a minor report and a $5 fee.
Care packages run through Iowa Prison Industries on a fixed annual window: orders open November 1 to November 30, and delivery runs December 19 to December 23. Institutions may limit how many a person receives, and no price list is published.
The weekly commissary spending limit is set and posted inside the institution, so she can read the figure and you cannot. Iowa publishes none of these either:
6 of 8 questions
To the IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account, 1550 L Street, Suite B, Fort Dodge, IA 50501, payable to IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account. Iowa banks every prison's money in one place and states that funds will not be accepted at or by any other location, including Mitchellville.
Send MoneyIt travelled with her and ICIW deposited it. Iowa's funds policy makes this facility responsible for depositing intake money for every female incarcerated individual in the state. The department's admission guidance says a new arrival may bring a bible, an address book, a small amount of photos and any cash she has.
Send MoneyNo, and it is the most common reason a deposit is returned. Iowa's funds policy states money orders and cashier's checks may not be sent with any other correspondence. The money order also has to carry her name and offender number plus your own name and complete address.
Send MoneyIowa deducts before money posts: 20 percent for state restitution, 20 percent for federal restitution, 10 percent of the balance owed for state court filing fees, 20 percent for federal filing fees, 10 percent into mandatory savings until that reaches $100, and 20 percent for department sanctions. A 6 percent surcharge is then added to commissary orders.
Send MoneyIf this is a new account, that is expected. Iowa tells families that the process for creating a new account in the banking system takes about a week when funds are sent electronically. If the account is established, check that all four required details were written on the money order and that it was not enclosed with anything else.
Send MoneyAccess Corrections publishes Iowa's lowest rates, from $3.49 online at accesscorrections.com on a Visa or Mastercard. Cash costs more: ACE Cash Express is a flat $5.95 and CashPayToday $6.95, both capped at $900. JPay runs from $3.95 online and $8.95 in cash through MoneyGram.
Send MoneyIowa publishes this. Gate money is $50 for work release and $100 for other qualifying releases, available once in any 12-month period, and it goes onto a MasterCard release card. Iowa provides bus fare to any destination inside the state, with anything beyond the Iowa border at her own cost. A balance left on a vending card is generally not refunded.
Send MoneyIowa gives the exact entries and a wrong one loses the payment. Pay to Iowa Department of Corrections, code city IOWADOC, state IA, and for the sender's account number use her ID number followed by her last name, for example 1234567Jones. Funds post three times a day, the last around 3:30 PM central time.
Send MoneyThe offender number every deposit is matched by.
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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.