What Happens After an Arrest in California
From the handcuffs to the first phone call to the bail amount — the order things actually happen in, and how long each step takes.
This is not legal advice. It is general information about how the process usually works in California, written to help you understand what is happening. Every case turns on its own facts, and law and local practice change. For advice about a specific case, speak to a licensed criminal defense attorney. If you cannot afford one, ask the court to appoint a public defender at the first hearing.
If you are reading this at two in the morning because someone you love was just arrested, here is the short version: they are almost certainly at a local jail being booked right now, you probably cannot reach them for several hours, and bail usually cannot be posted until booking is finished. Nothing you do in the next hour is wasted — but knowing the sequence will stop you from burning the night on phone calls that cannot be answered yet.
1. Transport and booking
After an arrest, the person is taken to the nearest jail with booking facilities. Booking is the administrative process of entering them into the system: fingerprints, photograph, a search, a health screening, and an inventory of everything in their pockets. It commonly takes two to eight hours, and longer on weekends, holidays, and after large enforcement operations.
Until booking is complete, the person will not appear in the jail's inmate search and a bail agent generally cannot post for them.
2. The phone call
California law gives an arrested person the right to make at least three completed phone calls, free of charge, within three hours of arrest. Calls to an attorney, a bail bondsman, and a relative are all protected. If the person is a parent or guardian with responsibility for a minor child, they are entitled to two additional calls to arrange childcare.
Calls from jail are recorded and monitored, with the exception of calls to an attorney. Treat every other call as if it will be read aloud in court, because it can be. This is the single most common and most damaging mistake families make.
3. Bail is set
For most offenses, the bail amount comes straight off the county bail schedule — a published list that assigns a dollar figure to each charge. Every California county publishes its own schedule and the numbers differ substantially between them.
If the charge is serious, or if there are holds, warrants, or immigration detainers attached, bail may not be available from the schedule at all. In that case the amount is set by a judge at the first court appearance.
4. Release, or arraignment
Once bail is posted, release from a large county jail typically takes another two to eight hours — the paperwork has to clear and the facility processes releases in batches.
If bail is not posted, the person is held until arraignment, which must generally happen within 48 hours of arrest, excluding weekends and court holidays. At arraignment the charges are read, a plea is entered, and the judge revisits bail: it can be kept, lowered, raised, converted to release on own recognizance, or denied.
What to do tonight
- Find out which facility they are in. Use the county's inmate search. If they were arrested in a city with its own jail, they may be there rather than at the main county facility.
- Write down the booking number. Every later conversation with the jail, the court, or a bail agent will start with this number.
- Get the exact charges and the bail amount. A single charge that looks minor can carry an enhancement that multiplies bail.
- Do not discuss the case on a recorded line. Not the facts, not what happened, not who was there.
- Ask about holds. A person with a probation hold, a warrant in another county, or an immigration detainer will not be released on bail even after it is posted. Find this out before you spend money.