A state auditor’s review of Iowa’s prison system finds the average cost of keeping an inmate behind bars has gone up nearly nine percent in the past five years.
The yearly cost for keeping an inmate in the state’s maximum security prison in Fort Madison was nearly $58,000 in 2014. It cost far less — about $21,000 — to keep one inmate for a year in the minimum security prison in Rockwell City.
The state has six other prison facilities in Anamosa, Clarinda, Fort Dodge, Mitchellville, Mount Pleasant and Newton. The state prison hospital and intake center for inmates is located in Oakdale.
The number of inmates in the state prison system declined by 2.7 percent from the middle of 2010 through June of 2014. The number of employees in the nine prisons declined by more than seven percent during that time frame.
The auditor’s report breaks out inmate and employee data for each of the state’s nine prison facilities.