Los Angeles County Bail Bonds
Los Angeles County does not work like Orange County. Since October 2023, Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols mean many people arrested here are released with no money bail at all — so the first question is whether you need a bond, not how fast we can write one.
Los Angeles County
Worked from our office on the county line
If you have dealt with a bail situation across the county line before, the most important thing to know is that the rules here changed — substantially — and a great many people who assume they need a bail bond in Los Angeles County do not.
American Freedom Bail Bonds has three physical offices: Anaheim, Brea and La Habra. All three are in Orange County. We do not have a Los Angeles County office.
We are not going to claim otherwise, and you should be sceptical of any agency advertising a dozen LA addresses. What we do have is a La Habra office sitting directly on the county line — La Habra borders La Habra Heights, Whittier and La Mirada — and nearly thirty years of working both sides of it.
Start here
Find what you need
Everything below links straight through to the detail for Los Angeles County.
The single biggest difference: Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols
On 1 October 2023, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County put into effect new felony and misdemeanor bail schedules that incorporate Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols, generally referred to as PARP. The protocol is still in force, and the schedules currently operating are the 2026 Felony and Misdemeanor Bail Schedules, effective 1 January 2026.
The protocol states that, effective 1 October 2023, it shall govern whether eligible arrestees in Los Angeles County are “released from custody without conditions, released with non-financial conditions, or held in custody pending arraignment”, with the court setting release conditions according to an arrestee’s risk to public or victim safety. Those three outcomes are the whole picture. PARP is not a release-everybody rule.
Announcing them, the court described protocols for “non-violent, non-serious felonies and misdemeanors” that determine release status based on an individualised assessment of risk and likelihood of returning to court, rather than on the ability to pay a scheduled sum. In the court’s own words, a low-risk arrestee should not be held in jail simply because they cannot post the necessary funds.
In practice that means for many lower-level arrests in Los Angeles County, a person is cited and released at the scene, or booked and then released on their own recognisance with a written promise to appear — with no money bail at all.
We would rather tell you this up front than sell you something you do not need. If the arrest is a non-violent, non-serious felony or a misdemeanor in Los Angeles County, there is a real chance no bond is required. Call us and we will find out where the person is and what release terms have been set — and if the answer is that you do not need us, we will say so.
The three release categories
The felony schedule assigns each eligible offence to one of three categories:
- CR — Cite and Release. Released at the location of arrest with a written promise to appear.
- BR — Book and Release. Booked, then released on their own recognisance.
- MR — Magistrate Review. A magistrate reviews the case and decides the release conditions individually. This is the one families most often misread as nothing happening — it means a judicial officer is making a decision rather than a schedule doing it automatically.
Zero-dollar bail is not available for serious or violent crimes. The schedule says so in those terms. It also lists arrestees who are ineligible for pre-arraignment release on zero-dollar bail, including people arrested for capital crimes where the facts are evident or the presumption great, and the offences listed in subsections (b) and (c) of Article I, section 12 of the California Constitution, who are ineligible for release on their own recognisance or on sufficient sureties.
When a bail bond is still needed in Los Angeles County
PARP did not abolish money bail. The court still publishes felony, misdemeanor and infraction bail schedules, and describes them as determining “the circumstances in which a person who is arrested without a warrant may be released from custody prior to appearance in court”. Money bail continues to matter in situations including:
- Serious and violent felonies, which the protocols do not cover.
- Arrests on a warrant. When a judicial officer issues an arrest warrant under Penal Code section 815a they may use the protocol to set a financial condition of release, and the schedule states that the amount fixed to the warrant lies within that officer’s sound discretion. In practice a warrant usually carries an amount — see our page on warrants.
- Cases where a judge sets or increases bail, including on a prosecution request under Penal Code sections 1269c or 1270.1.
- Holds on the source of bail under Penal Code section 1275.1, where the court requires proof that the money is not the product of a felony.
So the honest position is: in Los Angeles County a bond is needed less often than it used to be, and less often than in Orange County — but when it is needed, it is usually because the case is serious, and that is exactly when getting it right matters most.
Where people are held
Los Angeles County has a second difference that catches families out badly, because it sends them to the wrong building: men and women are booked into different facilities.
- Inmate Reception Center (IRC) — the central processing point for male prisoners, within the Men’s Central Jail and Twin Towers complex in downtown Los Angeles. The Sheriff publishes a 24-hour inmate information and intake line at (213) 473-6080.
- Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF) — 11705 S. Alameda Street, Lynwood, CA 90262. This facility holds female inmates only. Intake and administration (323) 568-4500; inmate information (213) 473-6100.
The Sheriff’s Department states that the Inmate Reception Center has functional supervision over the reception unit at CRDF and the booking functions at all Sheriff’s facilities — so both routes lead into one county system, but they are physically different places roughly twelve miles apart.
Who makes the arrest matters more here than in Orange County
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department provides patrol services for 153 unincorporated communities and 42 of the county’s 88 cities under contract. The rest run their own municipal police departments. Nearly half the county is sheriff-policed, and that decides where someone is held and which station has the paperwork.
In the area we serve from our La Habra office, the picture looks like this:
| Sheriff’s station | Communities it serves |
|---|---|
| Norwalk Station | Norwalk, La Mirada, and south and east unincorporated Whittier |
| Cerritos Station | Cerritos |
| Lakewood Station | Artesia, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, Paramount |
| Pico Rivera Station | Pico Rivera |
| Industry Station | Industry, La Puente, La Habra Heights, Hacienda Heights, Valinda, Bassett/North Whittier |
| Walnut/Diamond Bar Station | Diamond Bar, Walnut, Rowland Heights |
Cities including Whittier, Downey, Montebello, West Covina, Pomona and Long Beach run their own police departments instead.
One arrangement is genuinely unusual: Santa Fe Springs contracts its policing to the Whittier Police Department rather than to the Sheriff — so a Santa Fe Springs arrestee may be held in the Whittier city jail rather than entering county custody at all.
The courts
The Superior Court of Los Angeles County is the largest trial court in the United States and is organised into judicial districts. Three of them cover the area we work in:
- Southeast District — Bellflower, Downey, Norwalk and Whittier courthouses. This covers most of the Gateway cities.
- East District — El Monte, Pomona and West Covina courthouses, covering the eastern San Gabriel Valley.
- South District — the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse in Long Beach, plus Catalina.
Full addresses and detail are on our Los Angeles County courthouses page, and custody detail is on our Los Angeles County jails page.
Where we actually work in Los Angeles County
Because we have no office in this county, we concentrate on the Southeast and Gateway cities and the eastern San Gabriel Valley rather than pretending to cover all 88 cities. Bail is posted at the jail rather than at our office, which is what makes that possible.
Our nearest offices
La Habra, CA 90631(562) 690-8303
Brea, CA 92821(657) 286-5038
Anaheim, CA 92801(714) 520-2002
Addresses and directions for all three offices are on our office locations page. See our service areas page for the full list of communities, and Orange County bail bonds for the other side of the line.
The charges we are called about
- Domestic violence — note that Penal Code section 1270.1 requires a hearing in open court, on two court days’ written notice, before release on own recognisance or at a non-schedule amount for certain of these charges. This is state law and applies in Los Angeles County as it does everywhere in California.
- Felony charges — where the serious-or-violent distinction now decides whether the protocols apply at all.
- Warrants — the most common reason a Los Angeles County caller genuinely does need a bond.
- DUI, drug charges and misdemeanours — frequently within the protocols, so ask before assuming.
- All bail services and payment plans.
Call us about a Los Angeles County arrest
Tell us the person’s full name and roughly when and where they were arrested. We will establish which facility is holding them — the Inmate Reception Center or Century Regional in Lynwood — and what release terms apply under the current protocols, before you commit to anything. If you would rather start looking yourself, our find an inmate guide explains how.
Please note: American Freedom Bail Bonds is a licensed bail bond agency, not a law firm. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and we cannot guarantee a bail amount, a release time, eligibility for release, or the outcome of any case. Los Angeles County release rules changed substantially in October 2023 and court and jail information can change — always confirm details directly with the facility or the court. California bail licence 1841014.