Reviewed and updated October 4, 2026 by the SearchSystems.net editorial team. Every fee, address and phone number on this page was checked against the office's own website at review time, and every crime figure comes from the Sheriff's Office release of May 19, 2026.
Santa Barbara County, on California's Central Coast, has about 444,000 residents (2024 Census Bureau estimate). Its public records are split between the county, the state, the Superior Court and four city police departments, and the office that holds a record decides how you get it, what it costs and who may see it. This guide walks through each one with the 2026 fees, addresses and rules, starting with the county's own crime numbers.
In this guide: Crime numbers, Criminal records and background checks, Sheriff and police reports, Jail and inmate search, Sex offender registry, Court records, Divorce records, Birth, death and marriage certificates, Property records, Records requests, Which office covers your city and Questions.
Crime Numbers in Santa Barbara County, 2025
The Sheriff's Office released its 2025 crime statistics on May 19, 2026. They count Part 1 crimes, the eight serious offenses every California agency reports the same way, in the areas the Sheriff's Office patrols: the unincorporated county, Isla Vista, and the four cities that contract with the Sheriff for police service, Buellton, Carpinteria, Goleta and Solvang.
Across those areas, Part 1 crimes fell from 2,187 in 2024 to 1,982 in 2025, a drop of 205 incidents or 9.4 percent. Property crime drove the decline, down from 1,781 to 1,561 incidents, or 12 percent. Violent crime moved the other way, from 406 to 421 incidents, up 4 percent, and homicides rose from 1 to 3.
- Goleta, the largest contract city, went from 602 Part 1 crimes to 449, down 25 percent.
- Buellton went from 71 to 53, down 25 percent, and Solvang from 61 to 56, down 8 percent.
- Carpinteria rose slightly, from 200 to 204, and Isla Vista from 224 to 229, both up 2 percent.
- The unincorporated areas fell from 1,029 to 858, down 17 percent.
These figures do not include the cities of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe, which run their own police departments and report their own numbers. Statewide crime data for every agency in the county is published by the California Department of Justice on its OpenJustice site.
Criminal Records and Background Checks
California does not let the public search anyone's statewide criminal history. The official record, kept by the California Department of Justice, is released to the person it belongs to and to employers and licensing agencies that are authorized by law to see it. For anyone else, the court files of individual cases are the public record (see Court records below).
Your own California record
To see your own record, ask for a Record Review through Live Scan fingerprinting. You fill out the Department of Justice form BCIA 8016RR, choose "Record Review" as the application type, and take it to any Live Scan site. The Department of Justice charges a $25 processing fee, and the Live Scan operator adds its own rolling fee. If the record is wrong, the response includes form BCIA 8706, the claim of inaccuracy, which you return with a copy of the record and any proof. A record obtained this way cannot be used for immigration or visa purposes. Details are on the Department of Justice record review page.
Live Scan fingerprinting at the Sheriff's Office
The Sheriff's Office takes Live Scan fingerprints by appointment at two sites: 4434 Calle Real in Santa Barbara, Monday through Thursday, and 812-A West Foster Road in Santa Maria, Tuesday through Friday. Appointments run every 30 minutes and are booked through the Sheriff's fingerprinting page. The fee is $24 when the requesting agency gives you a billing number, $56 for a Department of Justice check without one, and $73 for a combined Department of Justice and FBI check. Ink fingerprint cards (FD-258) are $24 for two cards. Bring a driver's license, state ID, passport or other government photo ID and the agency's Live Scan request form. Payment is cash, Visa or MasterCard.
Local criminal history and clearance letters
The Sheriff's Records Bureau also issues a local criminal history, limited to Sheriff's Office records in Santa Barbara County, for $25, and a clearance letter for $37. Having either one notarized costs $15 more.
Sheriff and Police Reports
Crime, incident and traffic collision reports written by deputies are released by the Sheriff's Records Bureau at 4434 Calle Real, Santa Barbara, open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., phone (805) 681-4180, email records@sbsheriff.org. You fill out the Report Request Form and send it by email, by mail to P.O. Box 6427, Santa Barbara, CA 93160-6427, by fax to (805) 681-5346, or bring it in. Public records act requests go through the county's online records portal.
A report of up to 10 pages costs $15, and each page after that is 10 cents. A photo or audio CD is $25, a video DVD is $40, a calls-for-service printout is $20, and a booking photo is $25. A deputy usually needs 7 to 10 days to finish and approve a report, and the Records Bureau can take up to 10 more days to decide what may be released.
Not everyone can get every report. Crime and incident reports go to the victims, their representatives, insurance carriers and people who suffered injury or damage. Collision reports go to the drivers, owners, passengers, parents of minors involved, insurers and attorneys. Reports about juveniles go only to parents, and only when their child is the sole juvenile involved; anything else needs a court order. The Sheriff withholds details that could endanger a witness or harm an open investigation, the names and addresses of victims of certain crimes, and records the law closes outright, such as child abuse reports. The full rules are on the Sheriff's report request page.
Reports from inside the cities of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe are kept by those cities' own police departments, each with its own form and fee. The City of Santa Barbara explains its process on the Santa Barbara Police Department records page.
Arrests, Jail and Inmate Search
People arrested anywhere in the county, by city police or by deputies, are booked into a county jail, and the Sheriff's Office runs both of them. The Sheriff's online Who Is In Custody search, linked from the Sheriff's visit an inmate page, shows who is held now, with the booking date, the charges and bail, the custody status and the release date once there is one.
The two jails
The Main Jail is at 4436 Calle Real in Santa Barbara, phone (805) 681-4260. It holds men and women, both people awaiting trial and people serving county sentences. The Northern Branch Jail is at 2301 Black Road in Santa Maria, phone (805) 554-3100. It opened to inmates on January 22, 2022, with 376 beds in 133,000 square feet, including 32 beds for medical and mental health care. The county is now planning to shrink the Main Jail into a booking and short-term holding center and move its housing to new units at the Northern Branch Jail; the public design meetings were held in August 2026.
Visiting
Social visits are non-contact, through a window with phone handsets. Each inmate keeps a list of up to four approved visitors, and no more than two people, children included, may visit at one time. South County inmates may have two visits a week and Northern Branch inmates four. At the Northern Branch Jail visits run every day from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and are booked online through the jail's visit scheduling site; arrive 15 to 30 minutes early. Every visitor needs a valid photo ID, such as a driver's license, state or military ID, passport or a Matricula Consular issued after April 22, 2002. Phones are not allowed: bringing one into the visiting area brings a citation and a one-year ban from visiting. Dress is conservative, with no sleeveless tops, short shorts, visible underwear or gang colors or symbols.
Money for an inmate's account goes through the jail's deposit system and kiosks, and mail goes to the jail where the person is held with the person's name and booking number on the envelope. People sentenced to state prison leave the county jails for a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation facility and are then found through the state inmate locator.
Sex Offender Registry
Registered sex offenders living in Santa Barbara County are published on the state's Megan's Law website, run by the California Department of Justice. It can be searched by name, by city or county, by ZIP code, or around an address on a map. The listing shows the registrant's photo, physical description, offenses and, for most, the home address.
Not every registrant appears. Since California moved to a tiered registry, state law keeps some registrants off the public site and shows others only by ZIP code. A search that finds nothing is therefore not proof that someone is not registered. Registration itself is handled locally: people living in the unincorporated county and the contract cities register with the Sheriff's Office, and people in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe with their city police.
Court Records and Case Search
Every civil, criminal, family, probate, traffic and juvenile case in the county is heard by the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara. Its divisions split the work by area and case type:
- Anacapa Division, 1100 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara: civil, family law, probate, mental health, civil appeals and small claims for the south county.
- Figueroa Division, 118 East Figueroa Street, Santa Barbara: criminal cases, traffic and infractions for the south county.
- Cook Division, 312-C East Cook Street, Santa Maria: civil, family law, probate, mental health and small claims for the north county.
- Miller Division, 312-M East Cook Street, Santa Maria: criminal cases, criminal appeals and traffic for the north county.
- Juvenile court in Santa Maria, 4285 California Boulevard, and the Lompoc Division at 115 Civic Center Plaza.
Searching cases online
The court's online Case Records Search covers civil cases: you can look up a case by name or number and read its register of actions. There is no online index of criminal cases. A criminal case is looked up at the courthouse terminals or through the Records Department, as described on the court's court records page.
Copies of court records
Copies are ordered with the court's Copy Request Form, in person, by mail or by email, and take up to 14 business days. The South County Records Department is at 118 East Figueroa Street, Santa Barbara, phone (805) 882-4778, email southcountyrecords@sbcourts.org. The North County Records Department is at 312-E East Cook Street, Santa Maria, phone (805) 614-6414, email northcountyrecords@sbcourts.org. Both offices are open from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and answer the phone from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Copies cost 50 cents a page, and faxed copies from the North County office $1 a page. Certifying a copy adds $40, and a search that takes the clerk more than 10 minutes costs $15. Card payments carry a 2.9 percent plus 60 cent surcharge.
Divorce Records
In California, divorces are court cases, not vital records, so the Clerk-Recorder does not have them. The divorce file and the final judgment stay with the Superior Court division where the case was filed: the Anacapa Division in Santa Barbara for the south county and the Cook Division in Santa Maria for the north county. A certified copy of the divorce judgment costs $15 plus 50 cents a page from either Records Department.
The case index tells whether a divorce was filed and when. Most of the file is public, but documents the law makes confidential, and financial details a party has asked the court to seal, are not. For divorces granted between 1962 and June 1984, the California Department of Public Health can also issue a Certificate of Record, which confirms the names, the county and the case number but is not a copy of the judgment.
Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates
The Santa Barbara County Clerk-Recorder issues certified copies of birth, death and marriage records for events that took place in the county. Its offices are the Hall of Records at 1100 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara and the Betteravia Government Center at 511 East Lakeside Parkway, Suite 115, in Santa Maria. The phone is (805) 568-2250, option 3. Copies can also be ordered online through the Clerk-Recorder's self-service site.
The fees in effect since January 1, 2026 are $34 for a birth record, $26 for a death record, $23 for a fetal death record and $19 for a marriage record. For an event outside the county, order from the county where it happened or from the California Department of Public Health.
California issues two kinds of copies. An authorized copy is the one accepted for a passport, a driver's license or benefits, and it goes only to the person named, close family, legal representatives and a few others, who sign a sworn statement saying so; when the order is made by mail, that statement has to be notarized. Anyone can get an informational copy, which carries a mark saying it cannot be used to establish identity. Confidential marriage certificates are different again: only the two spouses can get a copy.
Property Records, Deeds and Parcel Search
Three county offices share property records. The Clerk-Recorder records deeds, mortgages, liens and other documents that affect title to land in the county, at the same two offices that issue vital records, and sells copies of recorded documents. The Assessor's parcel search looks up a property by address or parcel number and shows its assessed value and characteristics. The Treasurer-Tax Collector bills and collects the property tax on each parcel.
The Assessor's value is not a market price. Under Proposition 13, a property's assessed value is set when it is bought and can rise by no more than 2 percent a year after that, so a home owned for decades is often assessed far below what it would sell for.
Public Records Act Requests
Any record of a county office that is not posted online can be requested under the California Public Records Act. A request can be made in writing or by email to the office that holds the record, or through the county's online records portal, and it does not need to say why you want the record. The office has 10 days to say whether it will release the record, and can take up to 14 more days in unusual circumstances, such as records kept off site or a very large request. It can charge only the direct cost of copying, not staff time, except for data it has to compile or program. Court records are not covered by the act; they follow the court's own rules described above.
Which Office Covers Your City
Whether a report is kept by the Sheriff or by city police depends on where the incident happened. The cities of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe have their own police departments, which take reports, keep their own records and register sex offenders who live there. Buellton, Carpinteria, Goleta and Solvang contract with the Sheriff's Office, so their reports, crime numbers and registrations are the Sheriff's, as are those for Isla Vista, Montecito, Orcutt and the rest of the unincorporated county. Wherever the arrest, the jail is the Sheriff's, the court is the Superior Court, and the certificates and deeds come from the Clerk-Recorder.
SearchSystems also has a guide to the city offices of Santa Maria, Lompoc, Goleta, Solvang and Buellton.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are criminal records public in Santa Barbara County?
Court files of criminal cases are public and can be seen at the Figueroa Division in Santa Barbara or the Miller Division in Santa Maria, or ordered from the court Records Department. The statewide criminal history kept by the California Department of Justice is not public; you can get your own through a Live Scan record review for a $25 state fee plus the rolling fee.
How do I find out if someone is in the Santa Barbara County jail?
Use the Sheriff's Who Is In Custody search, which lists everyone held at the Main Jail in Santa Barbara and the Northern Branch Jail in Santa Maria, or call the Main Jail at (805) 681-4260 or the Northern Branch Jail at (805) 554-3100.
How much is a Sheriff's report in Santa Barbara County?
$15 for up to 10 pages and 10 cents for each page after that, from the Sheriff's Records Bureau at 4434 Calle Real, (805) 681-4180. Reports from the cities of Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc and Guadalupe come from those cities' police departments.
How much is a birth certificate in Santa Barbara County?
$34 for a certified birth record since January 1, 2026, from the Clerk-Recorder at 1100 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara or 511 East Lakeside Parkway in Santa Maria, or online. A death record is $26 and a marriage record $19.
Can I search Santa Barbara County court cases online?
Civil cases, yes, through the Superior Court's Case Records Search. Criminal cases are not indexed online; they are looked up at the courthouse or through the Records Department, (805) 882-4778 in Santa Barbara or (805) 614-6414 in Santa Maria.
How do I get a copy of a divorce in Santa Barbara County?
From the Superior Court Records Department of the division where it was filed. A certified copy of the judgment costs $15 plus 50 cents a page. The Clerk-Recorder does not keep divorce records.
Did crime go up or down in Santa Barbara County in 2025?
In the areas the Sheriff patrols, Part 1 crime fell 9.4 percent, from 2,187 to 1,982 incidents, as property crime dropped 12 percent. Violent crime rose 4 percent, from 406 to 421 incidents.
Is this the official Santa Barbara County website?
No. SearchSystems.net is an independent public records guide, online since 1997. It links to the official county, court and state offices described above and does not hold records, charge for them or take requests.