Lassen County, California — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Lassen County Jail / Lassen County Adult Detention Facility

Operated byLassen County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameYes — 'Adult Detention Facility (Jail)' and 'Lassen County Jail'
Jail address1405 Sheriff Cady Lane, Susanville, CA 96130 (from the county's own death-in-custody releases)
Sheriff's Office address1415 Sheriff Cady Lane, Susanville, CA 96130
Facility typeType II facility as defined by the Board of State and Community Corrections; holds both pre-trial and sentenced people
Booking agencies publishedLassen County Sheriff's Office, CHP, Susanville Police, Lassen County Probation, CDCR, Cal-Fire, Herlong Security, FBI and any other agency with arrest powers in the county
Rated capacity271 beds across 2 facilities

Source: Lassen County — Adult Detention Facility (Jail) · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✓Beds and daily population
✓What it costs taxpayers
✓Deaths in custody
✗PREA audits — not published
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Lassen County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-23. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
Beds156 rated capacity as published by the county. The state rated capacity file records 271 for Lassen (Lassen Adult Detention Facility 231 plus Lassen County Adult Jail Annex 40).

Since then

A separate 40-bed Lassen County Adult Jail Annex appears in the state rated capacity file; the county's own jail page describes a single facility and does not mention the annex

The Sheriff

Sheriff John McGarva

Also serves asCounty Coroner — the county's death-in-custody releases are headed 'Lassen County Sheriff - Coroner' and the Sheriff's Office lists a Coroner division
Sourcing noteLassen County's own website does not name the sitting Sheriff on any Sheriff's Office page; the name is taken from the California State Sheriffs' Association directory and appears in county Community Corrections Partnership minutes

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: California State Sheriffs' Association — Sheriffs Directory · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Two-judge court at the Hall of Justice, 2610 Riverside Drive, Susanville. The court publishes no judicial-officers page and names no dedicated arraignment or bail department.

Superior Court of California, County of Lassen — Presiding Judge

Mark R. Nareau

Superior Court of California, County of Lassen — Assistant Presiding Judge

Robert M. Burns

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Capacity is recorded 'yes': the county publishes a rated capacity of 156, an average daily population of 120 and about 1,400 bookings a year.
The county's published rated capacity of 156 is well below the 271 in the state rated capacity file. Both figures are recorded; the discrepancy is not explained on the county's site.
Budget is recorded 'yes' on the Auditor's Budget Information archive, but the only budget posted there is the FY 2016-17 Final Budget. Nothing more recent is published.
The Sheriff's Office Policies page is empty of documents; the Sheriff's site publishes a Military Equipment Use Policy and Ordinance but no PREA audit, no fee schedule and no bail guidance.
The jail page names Herlong Security and the FBI among booking agencies, indicating federal-adjacent bookings, but no contract or per-diem rate is published.
Lassen County's own site never names the sitting Sheriff on a Sheriff's Office page — a gap worth noting on a transparency record.
No BSCC inspection report is posted on the county's own site.
Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district.

What California law requires

Lassen County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. Lassen has no page titled for AB 2761 or PC 10008. It publishes 'Death In Custody Information Release' PDFs on the Sheriff's Office Press Releases page, which currently holds nothing else. Two are posted, dated 08-14-2025 and 01-01-2026. Each carries coroner's case number, county of death, agency with custodial responsibility, location of death with street address, specific location within the facility (Vehicle Sally Port; Housing Unit), race, gender, age, date of death, custodial status and separate manner and means fields. Both are complete on all seven elements.

✓The agency with custodial responsibility
✓The county where the death occurred
✓The facility — and where inside it
✓Race, gender and age
✓The date of death
✓Custodial status — awaiting arraignment, awaiting trial, or incarcerated
✓Manner and means of death

California Penal Code § 10008, enacted by AB 2761 and in force since January 2023, requires the agency with custodial responsibility to post these seven items on its own website within ten days of a death in custody, and to update them within thirty days if the facts change. California is the only state in the country with this duty. Checked 2026-08-23. This records what is published, nothing more.

The record

3 people have died in the Lassen County jail since 2022.

0 by suicide

1 illness or medical

3 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them2 of 3

Most recent death on the state's record2025-08-14

Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Lassen County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county elections office runs the polling place in Lassen County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the California Secretary of State and vote.gov.

Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered