Santa Rita Jail Population Data

How to Look Up Alameda County Jail Population Data

Alameda County jail population data lives in three official feeds, not one. The Alameda County Sheriff's Office, led by Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, runs Santa Rita Jail and is the primary source for current custody counts. The California Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) collects the Jail Profile Survey from every county jail in the state. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) publishes the federal annual jail report. BSCC posts quarterly data. BJS releases yearly. Sheriff data shows up in budget and annual report files.

None of these feeds is a live roster. BSCC reports rated capacity and county average daily population. BJS reports a rate per 100,000 residents. For a live in-custody name check, the Sheriff inmate locator is the right tool, and that one is covered on the Alameda County inmate records page. The Alameda County GSA Smart Grid Project PDF lists Santa Rita Jail at 4,000 beds and calls it the fifth largest county jail in the country. That number is the design capacity. Daily counts can sit well below it.

The screenshot below comes from the California Board of State and Community Corrections home page, which routes users to the Jail Profile Survey.

BSCC is the spot to confirm Alameda's rated capacity and pull a fresh county count.

Alameda County Jail Capacity Overview

Alameda County's jail capacity sits almost entirely at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Santa Rita is the county's working detention facility and the address most often listed in Sheriff documents. Glenn E. Dyer Detention Facility shows up in the Sheriff inmate locator's Pending Release notice, but current Sheriff location pages center on Santa Rita. The status of Glenn E. Dyer should be confirmed with the Sheriff before any current bed count is published for that site. The table below pairs each facility with what the official sources state and flags the spots where Alameda has not yet posted a public number.

Santa Rita is unusual for a county lockup. The facility carries a secure 24/7 power load of 3 MW and runs on a microgrid that pairs solar, fuel cell, wind, and battery storage. It was built to keep running through grid outages. That scale is a useful frame for any 4,000-bed count.

The screenshot below comes from the Alameda County GSA building directory entry for Santa Rita Jail.

The GSA page confirms Santa Rita as the active county detention site.

Average Daily Population

Average daily population, or ADP, is the most common way to measure a jail's true load. It is the mean of each day's in-custody count across a reporting period. Alameda County's current ADP for Santa Rita Jail is not posted in a single public dashboard at this time. The BSCC Jail Profile Survey is the right source on a quarterly basis. It reports each county's ADP, rated capacity, percent of capacity used, and status splits.

Santa Rita's design cap is 4,000 beds. ADP is the figure that says how much of that cap is in use on a given quarter. Without a current Sheriff dashboard, the safe move is to pull BSCC's most recent quarter for Alameda before quoting any percent-of-capacity figure.

Demographic Breakdown

Demographic detail on the Alameda County jail population, broken out by gender, race, and age, is not posted in a single live county feed. BSCC's Jail Profile Survey captures some splits at the county level. The BJS annual jail report shows national and state demographic shares but they are not Alameda-specific. The Sheriff's inmate locator has Sex as a search field (All, Female, Male), which confirms gender is tracked at booking, but the locator is a name search, not a roll-up.

One historical figure from a 2015 Alameda County Board of Supervisors document gives a frame of reference. On a single-day Santa Rita snapshot from that year, the jail held 1,056 people seen by Criminal Justice Mental Health, of whom 865 were male and 191 were female, and that 1,056 figure was 44% of the jail's population on that day. The numbers are old, and should not be read as current.

Note: Current Alameda demographic shares should be pulled from BSCC or a current Sheriff annual report before being cited in any filing.

Pretrial vs Sentenced Population

The split between pretrial and sentenced inmates is one of the most useful single numbers in any jail report. Pretrial inmates are held before a verdict or plea. Sentenced inmates have been convicted and are serving time, often under one year for misdemeanor cases or under three years for certain realignment felonies. The BSCC Jail Profile Survey reports this split for every California county.

State and national context helps. The BJS annual jail reports show pretrial inmates make up the majority of the daily jail count nationwide. Alameda's current share should be pulled from BSCC before being read against those benchmarks.

Misdemeanor vs Felony Population

The charge-type split is also a BSCC field. Felony bookings drive most county jail capacity in California after 2011 realignment moved some lower-level felony custody from state prison to county jails. Alameda's current felony share at Santa Rita is not in a single live feed. The BSCC Jail Profile Survey for the latest quarter is the right source.

This split matters because of length of stay. Misdemeanor holds tend to run days or weeks. Felony holds, especially realignment cases, can stretch into years. A jail with a high felony share runs a higher average length of stay, which drives ADP up even when the daily booking count holds steady.

Mental Health and Medical Population

Mental health caseload is one area where Alameda has a public historical snapshot. A 2015 Alameda County Board of Supervisors document reported that on the day of the snapshot, Santa Rita Jail held 1,056 inmates seen by Criminal Justice Mental Health (CJMH). Of those, 865 were male and 191 were female, and 1,056 made up 44% of Santa Rita's daily population at the time. That share is striking: nearly half of the jail's daily count was on the mental health caseload a decade ago.

The number is ten years old and is offered as historical context only. A current mental health share for Santa Rita is not posted in a single official feed. Updated figures live in Board of Supervisors agenda files for jail medical and mental health contracts. Santa Rita's mental health load has been a defining feature of the jail for years, and any current population read should weigh that in.

National and State Context

National and state jail rates set the frame for any county number. The BJS publishes the annual Jail Inmates report, which gives a national jail rate per 100,000 U.S. residents and a per-state rate. The Vera Institute publishes a county-level Incarceration Trends tool that uses BJS data plus census counts. Alameda's specific per-100k rate was not pulled into this research, so the table below lists the source for each row rather than a hard number.

The screenshot below comes from the Bureau of Justice Statistics home page.

BJS is the starting point when an Alameda figure needs a national or California-wide rate next to it.

Population Trends Over Time

A five-year Alameda Sheriff jail population trend table for 2021 through 2026 was not harvested in this research pass. No invented trend numbers will be posted. Santa Rita's rated capacity is 4,000 beds, and public population measures move with daily bookings, releases, and court orders. Any trend chart should be built from the BSCC Jail Profile Survey quarterly file for Alameda, cross-checked against the Sheriff annual report.

California county jail populations have been in flux since 2011 realignment under AB 109 shifted some custody from state prison to county jails. Post-COVID release reforms have also changed county counts since 2020. Alameda's trend line should be read in that frame.

Searching for Alameda County Inmate Records by Name

The page above covers aggregate Santa Rita Jail population data, not a live name search. For a name-based lookup of the current Alameda County jail roster, including booking date, charges, PFN, and Pending Release status, use the Alameda Sheriff inmate locator covered on the Alameda County inmate records page. For post-release tracking, see released inmates. For the criminal case file behind a booking, the right tool is the Criminal Online Records Search covered on arrest records.

Where the Data Comes From

Five official sources carry the Alameda County jail population numbers cited above. Each has a different scope and a different cadence. Pulling from the right source for the right question avoids a stale or mismatched figure.

• Alameda County Sheriff's Office: runs Santa Rita Jail at 5325 Broder Blvd, Dublin, 925-551-6500, plus the inmate locator at acgov.org/sheriff_app/. Sheriff Administration sits at 1401 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, 510-272-6878.
• BSCC: posts the Jail Profile Survey at bscc.ca.gov. Cleanest source for county ADP, rated capacity, pretrial/sentenced split, and percent of cap used in Alameda each quarter.
• BJS: posts the annual Jail Inmates report at bjs.ojp.gov. National and state per-100k rates frame the Alameda figure.
• Board of Supervisors agenda files: carry jail medical, mental health, and reentry items. These often include population snapshots used in budget hearings.
• GSA building directory: confirms Santa Rita's Dublin address and maintenance line, used in the capacity table above.

None of the feeds above is a live roster. The figures on the Alameda County Court Records FAQ page list which feed answers which question.

Santa Rita Jail Contact

Santa Rita Jail is the main detention facility for Alameda County and the address tied to almost every jail population data point cited above. Direct questions about a specific inmate, a booking, or a release status to the jail's main line, and expect long waits per the Sheriff inmate locator FAQ.