Not required · Iowa

Polk County Jail

Des Moines, IA · ~290 workers · 4 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

F
Failing Safety Record
15.7
Avg TCR
3.8
Industry avg
0
Fatalities

The verdict

Polk County Jail runs at 414% of its industry's injury rate - far more dangerous than the typical Not required workplace, earning a grade F.

F
Failing Safety Record
15.7
avg TCR · per 100 workers
3.8
industry benchmark (BLS)
112
recordable injuries tracked

Grade compares Polk County Jail's OSHA Total Case Rate of 15.7 to the Not required BLS benchmark of 3.8 (414% of benchmark) across 4 years of Form 300A filings (2016–2024). <a href="/methodology">See methodology</a> for reporting-limitation caveats.

Injury rate over time

Polk County Jail's yearly Total Case Rate, against the 3.8 industry benchmark.

-10010203040 2018201920202021 03.8 Industry benchmarkPolk County Jail TCR
Total Case Rate (recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers), OSHA ITA Form 300A. Industry benchmark: BLS IIF, NAICS 621111.

Where Polk County Jail falls in its industry

3,417 Not required establishments

Safer than 2% of graded establishments in this industry, whose median TCR is 2.6.

More dangerous than peersSafer than peers

Narrower to Iowa alone (the establishments it most directly competes with for workers and contracts): ranked #92 safest of 93 Not required employers in Iowa.

Trend analysis for Polk County Jail

Between 2018 and 2021, Polk County Jail's Total Case Rate improved from 17.1 to 0.0 recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers, a 100% decrease across 3 years of OSHA reporting.

The safest year on record was 2021, at a TCR of 0.0, while 2020 saw the highest rate, at 31.2, a spread of 31.2 points between the best and worst reporting years. That's a wide swing relative to the establishment's overall rate, worth checking the year-by-year table below for whether a single severe year is driving the average, rather than a sustained trend.

Summed across those 4 reporting years, Polk County Jail recorded 112 total injuries and illnesses, with no fatalities reported in any of those years. Readers comparing establishments should weigh the 4-year trend above alongside establishment size, since a larger workforce naturally accumulates more raw incidents even at a lower per-100-worker rate.

Verify This Employer with OSHA

The 112 injuries, 69 illnesses shown on this page for Polk County Jail are sourced from its own 4 years of mandatory OSHA Form 300A summaries. Cross-check the underlying establishment record directly against the federal source, name, NAICS classification, recordable case totals, and inspection history are all searchable on OSHA's Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data system.

Verify on OSHA Establishment Search

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data. NAICS 621111 - Not required.

DART Rate, Transparent Calculation (2021)

What is the DART rate formula?

DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) is computed by OSHA as incidents × 200,000 ÷ hours worked. The 200,000-hour denominator equals roughly 100 full-time workers, which lets establishments of very different sizes be compared directly.

0 DART incidents × 200,000 ÷ 80,040 hours worked = 0.00 DART

Methodology: 29 CFR 1904, OSHA Form 300A recordkeeping

Cross-Validating Context, Establishment vs Industry vs State

Benchmark TCR Source
Polk County Jail (this establishment) 15.73 OSHA ITA Form 300A, 4-year avg
Family physicians' offices (e.g., centers, clinics) industry avg 3.80 BLS IIF, NAICS 621111
Iowa state avg (all industries) 5.33 OSHA ITA, state-level rollup

Industry benchmarks: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) program

Reportable Incident Timeline

Year-by-year reportable incidents (recordable injuries + illnesses + fatalities) submitted by Polk County Jail to OSHA's Injury Tracking Application. Each row anchors to OSHA's inspection records search where you can pull the underlying inspection case numbers and citations for that establishment-year.

Source: OSHA Inspection Information System (IMIS) - inspection case-number records

Year-by-Year Safety Data

Year TCR DART Injuries Illnesses Fatalities
2021 0.0 0.0 0 0 0
2020 31.2 23.1 24 69 0
2019 14.7 3.5 42 0 0
2018 17.1 11.5 46 0 0

What this grade means for you

Use this grade as a relative read on Polk County Jail's reported OSHA injury record versus its Not required peers, not a verdict on whether any single site is safe today.

  • At 414% of the Not required benchmark, Polk County Jail reports more injuries than typical peers, ask specifically how the employer is reducing them. Know your rights
  • Judge this record against the wider Not required sector, where injury rates vary widely, before comparing it in isolation. See the industry
  • Grades reflect 2016–2024 filings; check the latest establishment record straight from OSHA, or look up a different employer. Look up another

Safety grades reflect employers' self-reported OSHA Form 300A filings from 2016 to 2024 and can lag current conditions. A grade is not a guarantee that any specific workplace is safe or unsafe today. See our methodology and disclaimer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Polk County Jail's safety grade?
Polk County Jail has a safety grade of F (Failing Safety Record). This grade is based on their average Total Case Rate (TCR) of 15.7 compared to the BLS industry benchmark of 3.8 for Not required.
How many injuries has Polk County Jail reported?
Polk County Jail has reported 112 total injuries and 0 fatalities across 4 years of OSHA data (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018). This data comes from mandatory OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA) reports.

Similar Employers

Matched by safety record across the industry, by workforce size within Iowa, and by nearby establishments in Des Moines - a different peer set than the category browse links below.

Similar TCR (~15.7)

Similar size (~290 workers)

Nearby in Des Moines

Data Source: OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA), mandatory establishment-level injury/illness reports. Grades compare employer Total Case Rate (TCR) to BLS IIF industry benchmarks. Data covers years reported by this establishment: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018. This is publicly available government data - not a legal determination of workplace conditions.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainSafetyScore Editorial

Every figure and grade on PlainSafetyScore is computed directly from OSHA's published Injury Tracking Application data and BLS industry benchmarks, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these safety grades, or report a data error. Data current as of 2016-2024 OSHA ITA release.