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California · County seat: San Bernardino · Checked 2026-08-23

San Bernardino County

The jail, the sheriff who runs it, and the judges who decide who sits inside. Every fact below comes from a named public record. Anything not yet sourced is marked still needed rather than guessed.

The Detention Center

West Valley Detention Center; High Desert Detention Center; Central Detention Center; Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center

Source: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department — Corrections / Jails · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

7/10Partial

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what San Bernardino 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.

Since then

  • 1991 — West Valley Detention Center built in response to 1980s overcrowding at Central
  • 1994 — Central Detention Center reopened after a budget closure when the Sheriff negotiated a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to house federal inmates
  • 2003 — Maximum Security Unit added to the Glen Helen female facility
  • January 2006 — High Desert Detention Center opened in Adelanto, the first Type II facility in the High Desert
  • May 2013 — 8-acre inmate fire camp opened at Glen Helen, the first county-operated fire camp in California

The Sheriff

Sheriff Shannon D. Dicus

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

Source: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department — Sheriff's Executive Staff · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

The court reports 104 judicial officers, so only the Presiding and Assistant Presiding Judges are listed here. The full department-by-department roster is published as the court's Schedule of Assignments at https://sanbernardino.courts.ca.gov/system/files/general/schedassign.pdf; it does not designate a single bail-setting bench.

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.

Notes on the record

What California law requires

San Bernardino County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. A page headed 'AB 2761' states it 'contains records regarding case files mandated by California Assembly Bill 2761 in accordance with California Penal Code 10008.' The index table itself gives only incident date, facility, facility address and last-updated date for 48 incidents from 01/13/2023 to 04/20/2026; the seven required items live in the linked 'In Custody Death Information Release' PDFs. Those PDFs carry all of them — the 09/02/2025 release lists Gender Male, Ethnicity Black, Age 64, Agency San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, Facility West Valley Detention Center with street address, Custody Status Awaiting Trial, County of Death San Bernardino County, Location of Death Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Date of Death 09/02/2025, Manner Undetermined, Means Undetermined. Several entries still show 'Case Files: Pending' and at least one release (01/20/2026) is a scanned image with no extractable text.

  • 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

122 people have died in the San Bernardino County jail since 2016.

21 by suicide
59 illness or medical
122 deaths in all, 2016 onward
Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them109 of 122
Most recent death on the state's record2025-09-02

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 San Bernardino 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 San Bernardino 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