San Bernardino County Jails
& Detention Centers

Los Angeles County spreads custody across dozens of city jails and Sheriff's stations, so the first question there is always which of scores of buildings holds the defendant. Riverside County is the opposite — five county facilities handle nearly everything, hub-and-spoke. San Bernardino County is genuinely a hybrid of the two.

Four county-level detention facilities carry the overwhelming majority of custody. West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga is the largest in the system at more than 3,300 beds. The Central Detention Center in downtown San Bernardino serves the central valley corridor. The High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto covers everything north of the Cajon Pass. Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore is the minimum-security, rehabilitation-focused campus — the one facility here whose population is largely sentenced rather than pre-trial.

Layered on top of that are smaller regional Type I jails tied to specific outlying communities: the Morongo Basin jail in Joshua Tree, Big Bear, Barstow, and Needles. This county is the size of four average states, and those facilities exist because trucking every desert or mountain arrest to the valley is not practical. They hold for hours or days, not months.

The practical rule: the further from the valley the arrest happened, the more likely someone is sitting in a small regional jail right now — and the more valuable it is to post before a transfer moves custody across the county. Confirm the current facility before anyone gets in a car. Give us a name and date of birth and we will find the booking first.