Iowa

Iowa sheriffs are elected county officers (Iowa Code § 331.651), and no Iowa county has a civilian oversight body covering the sheriff. Iowa SF 311 (Aug. 2025) prohibited cities with civil-service commissions from maintaining or creating citizen conduct-review panels for any LE agency, closing what little space existed for municipal oversight and reinforcing the legal absence of county-sheriff oversight.
Sheriff oversight
0/99 counties with a dedicated body 0 reports from those bodies
Other oversight
0 Civil Grand Jury reports 1 statewide oversight report
Compare costs Compare Iowa sheriff departments side by side
99 sheriffs named · of 99 counties
Population, budget, $ per resident, staffing, and jail capacity across all 99 counties.

Data from CA State Controller's Office and CA State Sheriffs' Association.

State context

Iowa's 99 sheriffs are elected county officers under Iowa Code § 331.651, serving four-year terms, and no Iowa county has a civilian oversight body covering the sheriff. Iowa SF 311 (Aug. 2025) prohibited cities with civil-service commissions from maintaining or creating citizen conduct-review panels for any law enforcement agency, closing what little space existed for municipal oversight and reinforcing the legal absence of county-sheriff oversight.

Iowa Code ch. 69 governs sheriff vacancies: if a sheriff leaves office before a term ends, the office's first deputy assumes the role until a successor is appointed to serve the remainder of the unexpired term, so a county's currently serving sheriff can, between elections, be a deputy turned appointee rather than the last directly elected incumbent. Iowa has no consolidated city-county government, no independent city sitting outside a county, and no county operating a separate county police department in place of its sheriff's office.

Counties

0 of 99 counties have a dedicated civilian sheriff oversight body. Highlighted rows have an established body. See methodology for scoring.

# County Status (date) Started (date) LE capability Independence

No record found · 99 counties

  • Adair
  • Adams
  • Allamakee
  • Appanoose
  • Audubon
  • Benton
  • Black Hawk
  • Boone
  • Bremer
  • Buchanan
  • Buena Vista
  • Butler
  • Calhoun
  • Carroll
  • Cass
  • Cedar
  • Cerro Gordo
  • Cherokee
  • Chickasaw
  • Clarke
  • Clay
  • Clayton
  • Clinton
  • Crawford
  • Dallas
  • Davis
  • Decatur
  • Delaware
  • Des Moines
  • Dickinson
  • Dubuque
  • Emmet
  • Fayette
  • Floyd
  • Franklin
  • Fremont
  • Greene
  • Grundy
  • Guthrie
  • Hamilton
  • Hancock
  • Hardin
  • Harrison
  • Henry
  • Howard
  • Humboldt
  • Ida
  • Iowa
  • Jackson
  • Jasper
  • Jefferson
  • Johnson
  • Jones
  • Keokuk
  • Kossuth
  • Lee
  • Linn
  • Louisa
  • Lucas
  • Lyon
  • Madison
  • Mahaska
  • Marion
  • Marshall
  • Mills
  • Mitchell
  • Monona
  • Monroe
  • Montgomery
  • Muscatine
  • O'Brien
  • Osceola
  • Page
  • Palo Alto
  • Plymouth
  • Pocahontas
  • Polk
  • Pottawattamie
  • Poweshiek
  • Ringgold
  • Sac
  • Scott
  • Shelby
  • Sioux
  • Story
  • Tama
  • Taylor
  • Union
  • Van Buren
  • Wapello
  • Warren
  • Washington
  • Wayne
  • Webster
  • Winnebago
  • Winneshiek
  • Woodbury
  • Worth
  • Wright