Clicking on any of the California Counties or Cities below will direct you to a list of all the City Jails, County Jails and Juvenile Detention Centers in that specific County.
California has 58 counties. The sheriff runs the adult jail in each one. Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Sacramento operate several buildings. Alpine and Sierra do not. A person arrested in a county without a jail is booked into a neighbor’s facility. City police stations have holding rooms, not county jails.
Standards come from the Board of State and Community Corrections, not from a governor-appointed board of people who have been locked up. BSCC writes the local detention rules and inspects county jails and juvenile facilities on a two-year cycle. Every county jail and juvenile hall got a full inspection in 2025. A targeted inspection follows in 2026. The board also collects the Jail Profile Survey, which tracks how many people are sentenced and how many are still waiting for court.
Jails in California are not limited to one-year sentences. A misdemeanor is still county jail. Since realignment in 2011, Penal Code section 1170(h) also sends many felonies to county jail if the charge is not serious, not violent, and not a registrable sex offense, and the person does not have that kind of prior. Those terms are often 16 months, two years, or three years, and a judge can split the term between jail and mandatory supervision. Serious, violent, and sex-registrable felonies still go to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A federal sentence goes to the Bureau of Prisons, which has institutions across the state.
There is no single open-jail total that stays still. The practical map is 58 sheriff’s systems, some with one jail and some with a men’s jail, a women’s jail, and a booking center. A published figure of 114 buildings is a snapshot, not a statute. When one county holds someone for another, or for the state or the federal government, it bills a daily rate under contract. That rate is not $50 to $150 statewide. Realignment is why so many county jails now hold people for years, not days, and why buildings finished in the 1980s and 1990s run out of program space even when the bed count looks adequate.
The Division of Juvenile Justice closed on June 30, 2023. The last youth left N.A. Chaderjian in Stockton and the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility that month. Senate Bill 823 moved serious youth commitments to the counties. What remains is a county system: juvenile halls for detention before a hearing, and secure youth treatment facilities for longer commitments. Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp stayed open under CDCR’s adult division and still trains eligible county youth in wildland firefighting. The Office of Youth and Community Restoration handles policy and the ombudsman for county youth facilities. BSCC inspects those facilities on the same cycle as the jails.
A youth in a juvenile hall is usually waiting on court. A youth in a secure youth treatment facility has already been adjudicated of a serious offense that used to mean a state youth prison. Both are secure, and both are supposed to keep school going. Search the county of the arrest. The listing shows that county’s hall, or the contract county that holds its youth.
Booking is a queue: identity, prints, a medical screen, a search, property bagged, one call if the phones are up. In a large jail the person may not reach a housing unit for a day. The law presumes innocence. The module does not. Food is basic, the uniform does not fit, and counts break the night. Withdrawal from alcohol, fentanyl, or methamphetamine often starts before arraignment.
Deputies who enforce the rules the same way for everyone run a quieter floor. Uneven enforcement is where contraband moves. Large counties can separate by risk and by gender. A small northern jail often cannot.
Most California jails sell tablet time, messaging, video visits, and deposits through a vendor. Those accounts can be shut off. Each county page on this site lists the jail phone, the vendor, and the way to send money for that sheriff’s office.