5th District

All of this unit's officers are Certified Law Enforcement Officers who have graduated from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. They are the only Department staff certified and allowed to carry weapons. A Polk County Sheriff's Officer and a Polk County Detention Officer are part of the Fugitive Unit. The units' duties include apprehension of fugitives, including those from other jurisdictions and agencies, surveillance of probation, parole, and residential facility offenders, training and instruction of fellow staff members, and assisting with the Polk County Electronic Monitoring Program.

*Note: A per transaction service fee of 2.5% and $1.50 will be charged by the payment processing company for this service.

This program was begun in 1978 as a means to have offenders give back to the community through unpaid work in the community which can be performed as a condition of probation or as part of a determinate Court sentence.

Officer duties are similar to ISP, but focus more on collaboration with community agencies providing interventions. This group meets monthly via the Domestic Abuse Coordinating Council.

The Department monitors the statewide electronic monitoring program for all eight District Departments of Corrections using voice verification, radio frequency, and global positioning satellite units.

Started as a pilot program, the unit's goal is to address, with a holistic approach, offender substance abuse behavior problems leading to criminal behavior.

The offender's needs and risk level are determined through the Level of Service Inventory, Revised (LSI-R), Jesness, and the Iowa Risk Assessment Form. Officers provide intense supervision of a smaller case load of high-risk convicted offenders holding them accountable through intensively supervising, monitoring, facilitating, and educating the offender in an attempt to restructure their thinking processes and to increase public safety and reduce recidivism.

*Other classes: You will receive information at your appointment.

The Department provides a number of cognitive-based intervention classes intended to help facilitate change within the offender, such as "CALM", Moving On", and Thinking For A Change" which are instructed by Department staff.

Des Moines Office

The Department‘s Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) provides supervision and treatment for convicted or pre-trial release sexual offenders. Supervision incorporates the use of designated Warrant Team officers and Electronic Monitoring, which includes the use of Global Positioning System (GPS). Treatment services consist of psychosexual / amenability for treatment evaluations, polygraph assessment, penile plethysmograph (PPG) assessments, as well as cognitive behavioral group, individual and family therapy.

Creston Office

The Department contracts with Crossroads Mental Health Center to provide sex offenders in Creston and surrounding areas with cognitive behavioral group therapy, family counseling, and psychiatric services on an "as needed" basis. A designated SOTP officer oversees the supervision and surveillance of offenders through the Creston Office, while GPS, polygraph, and PPG testing are implemented through the Des Moines Office.

Refers to those individuals who have been diagnosed with a major mental illness, dual diagnosis disorders (mental health and substance abuse problems), brain injury or mental retardation. Officers assist through numerous referrals and interventions while holding the offender accountable.

This unit, created to assist the Department by incorporating "Best Practices", "What Works", and effective correctional interventions into the daily Department operation, delivers research-based offender programming, staff guidance in the areas of case management and effective correctional interventions, and assists unit supervisors with quality assurance on assessment tools, case planning, and supervision according to risk, need and responsivity.

This program is offered at the discretion of the Department and Polk County Attorney's Office to qualified juvenile offenders waived to adult court on felony charges and young adults under the age of twenty-two who are charged with a first time felony. Staff assess, refer and monitor offenders who are sent to community-based substance abuse programs.