The moments after you learn a loved one has been arrested are some of the most disorienting a family can face. Before anything else, you need to know where they are. Kern County's jail system is large and spread out, so here is how to find someone in custody, and how we can shortcut the whole thing for you.
Start with the Sheriff's inmate information
The Kern County Sheriff's Office maintains inmate information for people held in the county jails. You can begin with the Kern County Sheriff's Office, which provides booking and custody information. To locate someone, it helps enormously to have their full legal name and date of birth, since common names can return multiple results.
Understand where they are likely held
Most Bakersfield-area arrests are booked at the Central Receiving Facility downtown, then transferred to the Lerdo complex if not released. Desert arrests run through the Mojave or Ridgecrest substations. Our full jails guide explains how a person moves through the system, which helps you know where to look.
What about the state prisons?
Kern County is also home to several state prisons, including North Kern State Prison and Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, Wasco State Prison, and the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi. These hold sentenced inmates and are searched through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, not the county. People in state prison are serving sentences and are not bailable.
Let us find them for you, free
You do not have to navigate any of this alone at 3 a.m. Call us with whatever you know, even just a name and an approximate time and place of arrest, and we will locate your loved one across the county system, confirm whether bail has been set, and tell you the amount. There is no charge and no obligation for the lookup. Reach us any hour at (661) 452-8889.
Check the court records too
For case and court date information once charges are filed, the Kern County court portal and the Kern County Superior Court provide public access. We also track court dates for every client we bond and send reminders, so nothing slips through the cracks.