The Detention Center
Santa Barbara County Main Jail and Northern Branch Jail
- Operated bySanta Barbara County Sheriff's Office, Custody Operations
- County publishes jail namesYes — both facilities named on the Jail Facilities page
- Main Jail address4436 Calle Real, Santa Barbara, CA 93110
- Northern Branch Jail address2301 Black Road, near Santa Maria
- Northern Branch Jail size376 beds, 133,000 square feet, including 32 special-use mental health and medical beds
- Staffing124 full-time employees at the Northern Branch Jail including 90 custody deputies
- Rated capacity1,193 beds across 3 facilities
Source: Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office — Jail Facilities · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNorthern Branch Jail: dedicated November 18, 2021, opened for occupancy January 22, 2022, when over 250 people were transferred from the Main Jail
- Original costNot found — the county publishes the state grant amount but not a total project cost
- Paid for by$80 million state grant, conditional award accepted October 2012
- BedsNorthern Branch Jail: 376 beds (133,000 square feet), including 32 special-use mental health and medical beds
Since then
- Site acquired April 2008; project kicked off May 2013; construction began September 2016
The Sheriff
Sheriff Bill Brown
- Title as publishedSheriff-Coroner
- Also serves asCounty Coroner — the Sheriff's Office runs a Coroner's Bureau
- Took officeJanuary 9, 2007; in his fifth term, elected June 2022
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office — Sheriff Bill Brown · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
The court states it has 21 judicial officers and one commissioner across three locations — Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Lompoc — so only the Presiding Judge and Assistant Presiding Judge are listed. Commissioner Elizabeth Diaz presides over Dept. 1 in the Santa Barbara Anacapa Division and Dept. 2 in Lompoc, which include minor-offence arraignments.
- 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
- Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown runs both the jails and the Coroner's Bureau that investigates deaths in them.
- Custody Jail Data publishes monthly jail population, bookings, releases, average age, average jail days, AB 109 realignment counts and breakdowns by sentenced/unsentenced, race, gender and age.
- Budget: the county's Sheriff budget section shows Custody Operations total operating expenditures of $95,155,400 for FY2024-25 ($61,380,200 salaries and benefits, $24,172,800 services and supplies, $9,602,400 other charges).
- A 'Post Bail' page exists at https://www.sbsheriff.org/command-and-divisions/custody-operations/post-bail/ but it carries no content, so the bond_info check is recorded 'no'.
- No PREA audit result, phone rate, video visit rate or commissary price list was found on the Sheriff's site.
- In-custody death notices are filed under the general news category rather than a dedicated transparency page, so a reader has to search the news archive to find them.
- BSCC rated capacity for Santa Barbara is 1,193 beds (Main Jail 689, Northern Branch Jail 344, Medium Security Facility 160) — a state figure that differs from the 376-bed figure the county publishes for the Northern Branch Jail.
- Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district.
What California law requires
Santa Barbara County posts a death-in-custody page.
Posts 3 of 7The page is here. There is no consolidated AB 2761 or PC 10008 page; the Sheriff posts individual 'Notice of In-Custody Death' news releases, and BSCC's county list points to one of them (https://www.bscc.ca.gov/icdr-county-info/). The most recent, posted January 23, 2026, gives the decedent's name, age (65) and gender and the date and time of death, and says the death 'appears to be the result of natural causes' pending investigation — but names no facility (only 'his single person cell'), no race, and no custodial status in statutory terms. Earlier releases are more specific: the June 29, 2025 notice names the Northern Branch Jail B Unit and the booking date and charges. Site searches for 'PREA', 'commissary' and 'phone rates' return only unrelated news items.
- ✓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
25 people have died in the Santa Barbara County jail since 2016.
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 Santa Barbara 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.
- Find your polling place and check your registration →
- Your county elections office →
- Register to vote in California →
The county elections office runs the polling place in Santa Barbara 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