California Arrest Records: What Is Public, Where It Lives and How It Disappears

Arrest Record, Criminal Record, Court Record: Three Different Things

People use the terms interchangeably. The law does not, and neither do the databases.

An arrest record is the booking record created when a peace officer takes someone into custody: name, description, date and place of arrest, the arresting agency, the charges the officer booked on, bail and custody status. It exists whether or not a prosecutor ever files a case. Arrests are allegations by an officer. A large share of felony arrests in California end with no charges filed, and many more end in dismissal or a lesser charge.

A court record is created only when the District Attorney or a city attorney files a complaint. It shows the charges actually filed, every hearing, the plea, the verdict or dismissal and the sentence. Court records are public, permanent and searchable by name in every county.

A criminal history record, the rap sheet, is the Department of Justice's compilation of both, reported by every agency and court in the state under Penal Code 11105. It is the only record that ties everything together, and it is the only one the public cannot see.

A detention that ends without a booking, a citation for an infraction, and a juvenile arrest are not adult arrest records. Under Penal Code 849.5 a person released without charges after arrest is deemed detained rather than arrested for most purposes, and the agency must issue a certificate of release on request.

What Every California Agency Must Release About an Arrest

Government Code 7923.610 lists it item by item. Agencies can withhold only what would endanger someone or an active investigation.

The Public Records Act carves arrest information out of the general law enforcement exemption. Government Code 7923.610, the recodified successor to the old section 6254(f), requires every state and local law enforcement agency to make the following public: the full name and occupation of every person arrested; the person's physical description including date of birth, color of eyes and hair, sex, height and weight; the time and date of arrest; the time and date of booking; the location of the arrest; the factual circumstances surrounding the arrest; the amount of bail set; the time and manner of release, or the location where the person is currently being held; and all charges the person is held on, including any outstanding warrants from other jurisdictions and parole or probation holds.

The only ground for withholding is that disclosure would endanger the safety of a person involved in an investigation or the successful completion of the investigation or a related one. The agency cannot refuse simply because the case is open. Victim names and the report narrative are a different matter and are covered by the general exemption, so what you get by right is the booking sheet, not the police report.

The same section requires release of the time, substance and location of all complaints or requests for assistance received by the agency and the response to them, which is why calls for service logs are public and why the daily arrest log at a police station is public.

Juvenile arrests are confidential under Welfare and Institutions Code 827 and are not released, with narrow exceptions for serious felonies by minors 14 and older.

Where Arrest Records Actually Live

Jail lookups for today, court indexes for history, press logs for the narrative. No statewide arrest search exists.

The fastest source for a recent arrest is the county sheriff's jail lookup, because the sheriff runs the jail in every county and most city police departments book into it. Los Angeles County's Inmate Information Center at app5.lasd.org/iic searches by name and date of birth or booking number and shows facility, charges, bail, next court date and holds. San Diego County's Who's In Jail at apps.sdsheriff.net/wij, Riverside County's JIMS at jimspub.riversidesheriff.org and San Bernardino County's Inmate Locator at jimsnetil.shr.sbcounty.gov work the same way, and every other county runs its own, listed on that county's page on this site. A person appears within hours of booking and disappears on release, so these tools answer who is in custody now, not who was arrested last year.

Cities with their own jails, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank and a few dozen more, hold arrestees in the city jail first. Someone arrested by one of those departments may not reach the county lookup for a day, and misdemeanor arrestees are usually cited and released from the city jail without ever reaching the county.

For arrests older than a few days, the source is the Superior Court's criminal case index in the county where the arrest happened, because once a complaint is filed the case is public and stays public. Los Angeles charges 4.75 dollars per name search as a guest. Most other counties, San Diego, Orange, Sacramento, Alameda, Santa Clara, Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno among them, offer free name searches on their own court portals. An arrest that shows in a jail lookup but never appears in the court index was declined or is still under review.

Many police departments and sheriff's offices publish a daily or weekly arrest log or booking log on their website or through a press log, which is the most convenient way to see the arrests in one town over a date range. Local newspapers republish these logs, and those republished versions are the arrest records that turn up in a web search years later.

After conviction and a state prison sentence, the record is CDCR's CIRIS at apps.cdcr.ca.gov/ciris. Federal arrests, for example by the FBI, DEA or Border Patrol, go through federal court and PACER, and federal custody is checked in the Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator. Immigration arrests by ICE are in the ICE Online Detainee Locator and never appear in a county jail lookup unless the person was first booked locally.

From Booking to Court: The 48 Hour Clock and What Follows

Two days to see a judge, then charges, arraignment, bail review and either a case or a release with no complaint filed.

A person arrested without a warrant must be taken before a magistrate within 48 hours, excluding Sundays and holidays, under Penal Code 825. Within that window the arresting agency writes the report and sends it to the District Attorney, or to the city attorney for misdemeanors in cities that prosecute their own. The prosecutor files a complaint, sends the case back for more investigation, or rejects it. A rejection is the point where the jail record ends and nothing goes to court.

Bail is set from the county bail schedule at booking and reviewed by the judge at arraignment. Since the California Supreme Court's 2021 decision in In re Humphrey, a court may not set bail at an amount the person cannot pay without first finding that no less restrictive condition will protect the public and secure the person's return, so many arrestees are released on their own recognizance or under supervision rather than on money bail. Los Angeles County replaced its emergency zero bail schedule in October 2023 with pre arraignment release protocols that route most non violent arrestees to release with conditions or to a magistrate's review before arraignment.

Most misdemeanor arrestees never see the inside of the county jail. Penal Code 853.6 directs officers to cite and release on a misdemeanor unless a listed reason for booking applies, so the arrest record is a citation with a court date and the person is in the court index within a few weeks if the case is filed.

Once a case is filed it moves through arraignment, pretrial hearings, a preliminary hearing for felonies, and either a plea, a trial or a dismissal. Each step is a docket entry on the public register of actions. The disposition, conviction, acquittal, dismissal or diversion, is reported to the DOJ and becomes part of the state record.

Getting Your Own Arrest and Criminal History Record

Fingerprints at a Live Scan site, 25 dollars to the DOJ, the record mailed to you. Fee waivers exist.

The complete record of your arrests, charges and dispositions in California is the state summary criminal history at the Department of Justice, and you are entitled to a copy under Penal Code 11120 and following. Take form BCIA 8016RR, Request for Live Scan Service, Record Review, to any Live Scan site. The DOJ fee is 25 dollars and the Live Scan operator charges its own rolling fee, typically 20 to 40 dollars. A fee waiver for the DOJ portion is available by submitting the waiver form with the request. Out of state residents submit a manual fingerprint card with form BCIA 8705 by mail. Instructions and forms are at oag.ca.gov/fingerprints/record-review.

The record comes by mail. Read every entry against the court paperwork you have. Arrests are supposed to show a disposition, and an entry with no disposition after the case ended is the most common error, followed by an arrest that belongs to someone else with a similar name or a stolen identity. To fix an error, file a Claim of Alleged Inaccuracy or Incompleteness, form BCIA 8706, with a copy of the record and the court documents that prove the correction, to the Record Review and Challenge Section, P.O. Box 160207, Sacramento, CA 95816-0207. The unit answers questions at (916) 227-3849.

A record review copy is for your own review. It cannot be used for employment or licensing, and it cannot be requested on behalf of someone else. Employers and licensing agencies authorized to fingerprint applicants receive their results directly from the DOJ under their own agency code.

Sealing an Arrest: Automatic Relief, Petitions and Factual Innocence

Most arrests with no conviction are sealed by the DOJ without a petition. Three routes cover the rest.

Automatic arrest relief under Penal Code 851.93 is the default route. The Department of Justice reviews its records every month and grants relief, without any petition, to arrests where no charges were filed within one year for a misdemeanor, three years for a felony, or six years for felonies carrying eight years or more, and to arrests that ended in acquittal, dismissal or completed diversion. The entry is marked in the state database as arrest relief granted, is no longer disclosed to employers, licensing agencies or background screeners, and the DOJ notifies the Superior Court, which seals its own record. Law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts and a few statutory users such as peace officer hiring and firearms eligibility still see it. Relief does not erase the underlying police report at the arresting agency.

Penal Code 851.91, the petition route, covers arrests that did not result in conviction but that fall outside the automatic program, and lets the person ask the court that would have heard the case to seal the arrest as a matter of right, or in the interests of justice when the person has a pattern of similar arrests. The order requires the DOJ and the arresting agency to seal the record and to state on any response that the arrest is sealed.

Penal Code 851.8, factual innocence, is the strongest remedy. Within two years of the arrest, or later for good cause, a person who was arrested but not charged, or charged and acquitted, can petition the arresting agency and then the court for a finding that no reasonable cause existed. If granted, the arrest is deemed not to have occurred, the records are sealed for three years and then destroyed, and the person may lawfully answer that they were never arrested.

Convictions are a separate track. Penal Code 1203.4 dismissal, the relief most people call expungement, and the automatic conviction relief under Penal Code 1203.425 clear eligible convictions from disclosure but leave the arrest reported as a dismissed conviction, not as a sealed arrest.

What Employers, Landlords and Background Checks Can Do With an Arrest

Arrests without conviction are off limits to employers. Screeners have a seven year window. Government agencies have their own rules.

Labor Code 432.7 bars any California employer from asking about, seeking or using an arrest that did not result in a conviction, a diverted case, or a sealed or dismissed record, in hiring, promotion or termination. The exception is a pending arrest for which the person is out on bail or on their own recognizance, which an employer may consider, and specific carve outs for health facilities and law enforcement hiring.

The Fair Chance Act, Government Code 12952, adds a timing rule for employers with five or more employees: no question about criminal history of any kind until after a conditional offer, then an individualized assessment of any conviction, written notice of a preliminary decision, at least five business days to respond, and a final written decision. Arrests without conviction cannot be considered at any point. The Civil Rights Department enforces it and the 2023 regulations spell out what the assessment has to weigh.

Background screening companies operate under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and California's Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act. Civil Code 1786.18 bars reporting an arrest, indictment or misdemeanor complaint that did not result in conviction, and bars reporting any arrest older than seven years, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act's seven year limit applies nationally. A sealed arrest that still shows on a screening report is a reportable violation, and the screener has to reinvestigate on request.

Landlords are covered by the Fair Employment and Housing Act regulations on criminal history, which bar blanket policies and require an individualized assessment, and arrests without conviction cannot be used to deny housing. Licensing boards under the Department of Consumer Affairs may consider convictions substantially related to the license under Business and Professions Code 480 but, since 2020, not arrests that did not lead to conviction and not most convictions older than seven years.

Booking Photos and Mugshot Websites

Police may not post most booking photos on social media. Websites may not charge to take them down.

A booking photograph is part of the arrest record and is generally disclosable to the public under the same statute as the rest of the booking information, subject to the safety and investigation exceptions. Whether a given agency releases photos on request varies, and many agencies release them only for wanted persons or under a court order.

Since January 1, 2022, under Penal Code 13665, added by AB 1475, police departments and sheriff's offices may not post the booking photo of a person arrested for a non violent crime on social media unless the person is a fugitive or an imminent threat and posting will help locate them, or unless a judge orders it. Photos already posted must be removed on request unless one of the exceptions applies, and since January 1, 2024, under AB 994, an agency must remove any posted booking photo, whatever the offense, when the person asks and was not charged, was acquitted, or had the record sealed or the conviction dismissed.

Commercial mugshot websites are regulated by Civil Code 1798.91.1. A website that publishes booking photos may not charge a fee to remove, correct or update the photo or the accompanying information. Demanding payment for removal is a violation enforceable by the Attorney General and by a private lawsuit for damages. The law does not force the site to take the photo down for free, but a sealed arrest, a factual innocence finding or a copyright claim by the agency that took the photo are the usual grounds that get a takedown.

Arrest and Jail Records by California County

Every county page carries that county's sheriff jail lookup, court case index and records unit.

Booking systems, court indexes and police records units are county and city specific. The county pages on this site list the sheriff's inmate search, the Superior Court's criminal case lookup and the records units of the sheriff and the larger city police departments for each county. The largest jail systems are Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Alameda, Fresno and Kern, and together they hold most of the more than 50,000 people in California county jails on any given day.

What Changed for California Arrest Records in 2025 and 2026

Automatic sealing at full scale, mugshot takedown rights, and the DOJ's public statistics.

The automatic arrest relief program under Penal Code 851.93 now runs at its full scope after the SB 731 expansion, so felony arrests with no charges filed are sealed on the same monthly cycle as misdemeanor arrests. The DOJ publishes the number of records relieved each year by county on its OpenJustice portal.

Agencies must now remove previously posted booking photos on request in the circumstances added to Penal Code 13665, including when the case ended without a conviction or the record was sealed.

CDCR's CIRIS replaced the old Inmate Locator for state prison searches, and the Los Angeles Superior Court continues to charge per search for its name indexes while allowing free lookups by case number.

AB 1524 took effect January 1, 2026 and lets you photograph or scan the public parts of a criminal case file at the courthouse with your own device instead of paying the clerk's per page fee.