San Diego County Jail System

The Detention Services Bureau of the San Diego County Sheriff's Office operates the San Diego County Jail System, which includes seven detention facilities throughout San Diego. 

• San Diego Central Jail 
• Las Colinas Detention & Reentry Facility 
• Vista Detention Facility
• George Bailey Detention Facility
• South Bay Detention Facility
• East Mesa Reentry Facility
• Facility 8 Juvenile Detention Facility

The San Diego County jail facilities house:

• Adult males and females who have been arrested by county or municipal law enforcement and are awaiting trial (have not made bail)
• Inmates who have been sentenced to the county jail, and
• Inmates being held for transport to the California Department of Corrections.
• Federal inmates being housed in partnership with the US Marshal Service

The jails vary in size, design, and function. The combined average daily population among these facilities totals more than 5,000 inmates. Approximately 100,000 inmates per year are booked, classified, and housed and/or released.

Some of the jails are in urban areas and are co-located with regional court complexes to provide  high levels of security. Others are medium security facilities located in rural settings, serving the needs of lower risk, sentenced inmates. 

Inmate Search

To find out if your loved one is being held in a San Diego County Jail facility, click here or use VINE (see below). 

VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday)

Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) is a free and anonymous telephone service that provides victims of crime both information and notification. VINE monitors the custody status of offenders in the San Diego County Jail and receives updated information every 15 minutes.

The Toll Free Number for California VINE is 1.877.411.5588. Anyone can call the California State VINE line to determine an inmate's custody status. To search for offender information, callers will need one of the following items:

• Offender name or alias
• Secondary search option (if there is more than one offender with the same name), such as:
  • Arrest date
  • Date of birth
  • Middle initial
  • Offender identification number

VINE will let callers know about the offender's current custody status, the location of the inmate, and their offender number.

Prison Insights

Visiting Hours and Rules

Each jail in the San Diego County Jail System has unique visiting hours and visitor requirements. Please refer to the individual facility pages for specific visiting hours and requirements.

Instructions for sending email to your inmate

Search for the inmate on the Who’s in Jail page from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department using the inmate’s name. To prevent spelling conflicts, you may search using only the first two letters of the first and last name.

When you submit that search, you will get a screen asking you to enter a 5-letter code. Enter the 5 letters and submit it - the letters are not case sensitive.

You should then see the result list with one or more names. Click on the last name of the correct inmate to view the inmate’s page in the Who’s in Jail system. Please note that the last name may not look like a link, but it is.

There is an envelope icon located about halfway down the page that you can click in order to send a message. When you do so, you will be asked to verify your email address. 

How to Call an Inmate

Inmates at the San Diego County Jails cannot receive incoming phone calls. However, they have access to phones and can make outgoing calls from the inmate housing area on a daily basis. 

All phone calls from San Diego County Sheriff's Department jails are free. This includes local, long distance, and international calls. An inmate can make unlimited phone calls per day, but each call is limited to 15 minutes.

California law has established the right of an arrested person to make at least three free local telephone calls upon being booked: one call to an attorney, one to a bail bond agent, and one to a relative or other personal contact. Phone calls are recorded and may be monitored at any time.

How to Send Money

To deposit money into an inmate's account—or to send a care package—click here for the San Diego Sheriff's Office online commissary.

In order to send money or place an order, you'll need to provide the Booking Number that identifies the inmate you are placing the order for. If you don't know the Booking Number of the inmate, you will be able to verify the inmate's booking number from the checkout page.

Programs For Inmates

The San Diego County Detention Services Bureau provides a wide array of quality services including medical, mental health, food, counseling, recreation, religious, education and job training services.

Vocational opportunities include Culinary Arts, Bakery, Commercial Laundry, Healthcare Service Assistant Training, Industrial Sewing, Landscape Maintenance, Construction Trades, Bicycle Shop and CIVICS Landscape.

Educational courses include High School Equivalency, Computer Literacy. College-level courses are provided by Southwestern Community College, Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College, and Palomar Community College. 

Wellness classes offered include yoga, trauma art workshops, and theater arts.

Psycho-Social classes are based on the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy curriculum. Classes include Thinking for a Change, a 12-week course addressing self-cognitive change, social skills and problem solving. 

Gender Responsive and Trauma Informed curriculum: Beyond Anger and Violence focuses on anger along with the traumas experienced while addressing cognitive behavioral restructuring and grounding skills for trauma triggers. 

The Veterans Moving Forward program is dedicated to helping incarcerated veterans by providing them the necessary programs while in custody. Along with services and community resources to reduce their rate of recidivism.

The East Mesa Reentry Facility and Las Colinas Detention & Reentry Facility both have a job center in collaboration with San Diego Workforce Partnership. The goal of the job center is to prepare inmates for their return to the community. They learn how to use a computer, write resumes, practice interview skills, as well as search and apply for jobs online.

Pictures of San Diego County Jail System

Careers at San Diego County Jail System

If you are interested in a career with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and would like more information about the job openings in the San Diego County Jail System, click here.