Medium · State Prison · Iowa DOC

Clarinda Correctional Facility

Clarinda, Page County, Iowa

Visiting schedules change without notice. Always call before traveling.

Call Visiting Office: (712) 695-7140 Info last verified: June 2026

A medium-security men's prison in Clarinda with a special-needs mission, serving men with disabilities, mental illness, or protective needs.

Statewide rules that apply at Iowa DOC prisons

These rules are set by Iowa DOC and apply at every unit. The full list — including all permitted and prohibited items and the approval process — is in Visiting in Iowa.

Dress code

Dress modestly — Iowa facilities enforce a visiting dress code that bars revealing, sheer, or provocative clothing, gang-related items, and anything resembling what incarcerated individuals or staff wear.
Each facility may turn away a visitor who is dressed out of code, and electronics are not allowed inside, so confirm the specific facility's rules before traveling.

ID: Every visitor must be on the incarcerated individual's approved visiting list before visiting — applications go by mail to the Centralized Visiting Authority at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility, and the list is capped at six approved visitors plus immediate family. Bring a government-issued photo ID to each visit.
What to bring: Bring only what the facility allows — most personal items are not permitted in the visiting room. Money for an incarcerated individual's account is sent through Access Corrections, JPay, or Western Union, never handed over at a visit.
Scheduling: Iowa has no single statewide online scheduler — once a visitor is approved, in-person and video visits are scheduled per facility through the Ameelio Connect app, and each institution offers visiting at least four days a week. Men enter the system at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center (Coralville); women at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (Mitchellville).

Full statewide rules: Visiting in Iowa

Overview

Clarinda Correctional Facility (CCF) is a medium-security state prison for men operated by the Iowa Department of Corrections. It is in Clarinda, the seat of Page County, in southwest Iowa, and opened in 1980.

The Iowa DOC assigns custody level based on factors that can change during incarceration. The housing unit and program assignment held at a given prison affect visiting arrangements, so families confirm the arrangement that applies to the specific incarcerated individual before a first visit.

What Makes Clarinda Different

Clarinda Correctional Facility has a special-needs and intensive-supervision mission. It serves men who are intellectually disabled, mentally ill, who have a sex-offense history, or who have protective or social needs, with individualized treatment rather than a single general-population assignment. Programming includes substance-abuse treatment, psychological counseling, cognitive-skills classes, and anger management, and the facility operates a prison industry.

(Clarinda Correctional Facility is a separate institution from the former “Clarinda Academy,” a juvenile facility that closed around 2021. They are unrelated; the academy is not part of this prison.)

Visiting

The statewide Iowa DOC rules — the approved visitor list, the dress code, ID, and item limits — apply at Clarinda. The facility’s own arrangements:

Getting There and Parking

Clarinda Correctional Facility is at 2000 North 16th St in Clarinda, in Page County in southwest Iowa, near the Missouri state line. Visitors confirm current entry procedures, the visitor-processing location, and what may be brought onto the grounds with the facility before arriving, because electronic devices and personal items are generally not permitted inside.

Communication

Iowa uses Ameelio, a nonprofit communications provider, across its prisons for phone calls, video visits, and electronic messaging. Ameelio’s services are provided free to families. Video visits are scheduled through the Ameelio Connect app, which is used on a mobile device. See the Phone & Video Calls guide for how to set up an account and add a contact.

Mail

Iowa does not deliver friends-and-family mail to the prison. Personal mail is processed off-site by a private vendor, Pigeonly, at a central facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, which opens, scans, and prints each item, with the copy delivered to the facility. Mail sent directly to the prison is returned to the sender.

Each facility has its own ID code that must appear on the envelope along with the incarcerated individual’s name and ID number. See the Mail & Packages guide for the exact Pigeonly address and the facility ID code, and verify the current rules before sending anything.

Legal and privileged mail goes directly to the facility, not to Pigeonly.

Learn More

For detailed information about visiting and communicating with someone at an Iowa prison:

Visiting in Iowa — approval process, dress code, scheduling
Mail & Packages — what you can send and what gets rejected
Phone & Video Calls — accounts, call costs, video visits
Sending Money — how to add funds to an account
Medical & Mental Health — health care in Iowa prisons
Transfers — what happens during transfers

Sources

This page is compiled from the following publicly available sources. Policies change without notice — confirm current details with the facility before relying on them.