Sonoma County Arrest Records

Sonoma County arrest records are law enforcement files that document arrests made in the county. These official records are prepared whenever an individual is lawfully apprehended and booked by officers of the law. Arrests in Sonoma County are usually made by the sheriff’s department and the various police departments of the cities and towns in the county. However, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) may also make arrests in Sonoma County.

To access a Sonoma County arrest record, you must contact the law enforcement agency that conducted the arrest. After detaining an arrestee, they may be charged to a Sonoma County court. If the arrestee is charged with a criminal offense, they will appear in the county’s criminal court. Court officials will then open and maintain Sonoma County court records for the duration of the case.

Are Arrest Records Public in Sonoma County?

Yes. The California Public Records Act (CPRA) mandates local law enforcement agencies to make arrest records available to the public. This means that Sonoma County law enforcement agencies must provide arrest records upon request. However, the CPRA allows these agencies to deny access to certain records such as ones sealed by court orders. In California, an arrest record is sealed by default if it contains:

• Information that may be used to identify a minor/juvenile
• Evidentiary information in an ongoing case or active investigation
• Details that may endanger a third party
• Information that may hinder a fair trial

The CPRA also does not allow you to obtain arrest records that are part of someone else’s criminal record.

What Do Public Arrest Records Contain?

The information provided by a Sonoma County arrest record include:

• Arrestee’s bioinformation such as full name, age, and gender
• Arrest charge or the offense supposedly committed by the arrestee
• Arresting officer’s identity i.e. their name
• The law enforcement agent represented by the arrest officer
• Booking date, time, and number
• Where the arrest was made

Sonoma County Crime Rate

The California Department of Justice publishes annual crime statistics for all the counties in the state from data provided by local law enforcement agencies. Its report shows that there were 1,400 violent crimes and 5,794 property crimes recorded in Sonoma County in 2023. A closer look at these index crime figures breaks down the crime numbers as 15 homicides, 266 rapes, 229 robberies, 890 aggravated assaults, 962 burglaries, 710 motor vehicle thefts, and 4,122 larcenies.

Sonoma County Arrest Statistics

Arrest data for Sonoma County are also provided by the California Department of Justice. Its records show that local law enforcement agencies in the county made 3,622 felony arrests and 9,704 misdemeanor arrests in 2023. Among felonies, violent crimes accounted for 1,399 arrests while property, drug, and sex offenses led to 730, 265, and 56 arrests respectively.

The populations of individuals in Sonoma County jails are available from the various law enforcement agencies in the county. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office provides daily Jail Population Data.

Find Sonoma County Arrest Records

Part of a Sonoma County arrest record is the location of the arrestee. Arrest records for the cities, towns, and census-designated areas of the county are available from the police departments with jurisdiction over those areas. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office police the unincorporated areas of the county as well as the City of Sonoma and the Township of Windsor. To locate an inmate in the sheriff’s jail, use the Jail Inmate Search tool provided on their website. You can search for an inmate by their name or booking number.

A Sonoma County arrest may lead to incarceration in a state prison. For people held in California state prisons, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) maintains their records. To find such inmates, use the CDCR’s California Information Records and Information Search (CIRIS).

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) maintains a number of prisons in California where Sonoma County arrestees may be remanded. To locate an inmate in a federal prison, search with the BOP’s inmate lookup tool.

Free Arrest Record Search in Sonoma County

Detention and correctional facilities at county, state, and federal levels offer free arrest record search to help locate inmates arrested in Sonoma County. Some of these lookup tools are

• Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office’s Jail Inmate Search
• California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s CIRIS
• Federal Bureau of Prison’s inmate lookup tool

In addition to these, there are free search tools provided by third-party record finders online. These often aggregate search results from multiple sources. However, their records may be incomplete and out-of-date.

Get Sonoma County Criminal Records

The California Department of Justice (DOJ) provides Sonoma County criminal records. However, you can only request your own criminal history from this agency. The DOJ only provides fingerprint-based background checks. Therefore, you must provide a complete set of your fingerprints along with your application. You can get these from local police departments, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, or a Live Scan location.

To request your Sonoma County criminal record from the DOJ, start by downloading and printing the Live Scan Form (Spanish version). Complete this form by checking “Record Review” under “Type of Application” and writing the same in the “Reason for Application” section. Fill out the rest of the form with your name, gender, mailing address, and other required details. Take the completed form to a Live Scan location for fingerprinting and pay a $25 fee for the DOJ.

If you are requesting your Sonoma County criminal record from outside the State of California, you must fill the Application to Obtain copy of State Summary Criminal History Record form (Spanish). Visit your local law enforcement agency for fingerprinting. Your fingerprints must be set on a blank fingerprint card (Form FD258). Send the completed application along with the required fee to:

California Department of Justice
Bureau of Criminal Identification and Analysis
Record Review & Challenge Section
P.O. Box 160207
Sacramento, CA 95816-0207

You can pay with a personal check, a certified check, or a money order. Make the check or money order out to the California Department of Justice.

Sonoma County Arrest Records Vs. Criminal Records

While some use both terms interchangeable, an arrest record is quite different from a criminal record. An arrest record only documents the beginning of a potential criminal or civil case. It describes an arrest event and does not mean the arrestee is guilty of the offense for which they were detained. In contrast, a criminal record is a comprehensive history of an individual’s brush with the law as a result of suspected criminal activities. Therefore, a Sonoma County criminal record will include documentation of arrests, charges, prosecutions, sentencing, incarcerations, and releases in which a named individual is the subject.

A criminal record is the document obtained following a background check request. It is the record of interest to authorized agencies such as employers, credit reporting organizations, law enforcement, and professional bodies.

How Long Do Arrests Stay on Your Record?

California does not set a period for which an arrest may remain on the arrestee’s record. Each law enforcement agency in the state may determine their arrest record retention period. However, the DOJ retains all arrest and criminal records until their subjects turn 100.

Expunge Sonoma County Arrest Records

Expunging an arrest record means to completely erase it so that the arrest recorded legally never occurred. This is a deeper scrubbing than simply sealing a record. However, California makes no provision for true record expungement. Even then, it is possible to destroy your arrest record if you were factually innocent.

Expunging a Sonoma County arrest record in this way requires proving your factual innocence for the offense for which you were arrested. This means that you must convince a judge that the arrest was made in error. As long as no charge was filed following the arrest or the charge was dismissed before the case went to trial, you can easily get the court to have the arrest record destroyed. However, if you were found not guilty at the trial or convicted but the conviction set aside because you were factually innocent, you would need your lawyer to file the motion to destroy the record of your arrest. Visit the appropriate court in Sonoma County to request a form for expunging your record in this way. Most California courts use the California Department of Justice’s Petition to Seal and Destroy Adult Arrest Records (BCIA 8270) for this purpose.

To seal a Sonoma County arrest record, the arrest recorded must not lead to a conviction under the California Penal Code section 851.91. If you meet this requirement, you can request a court in the county to seal your record with the Petition to Seal Arrest and Related Records (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Spanish). Note that a sealed arrest record is still accessible to law enforcement and other government agencies.

Sonoma County Arrest Warrants

A Sonoma County arrest warrant is a judge-approved order to bring in a suspect or known offender so they may appear in court. Judges in Sonoma County courts often issue arrest warrants so law enforcement officers can detain individuals who violated their parole or probation or fail to appear in court on their due dates. It is also possible for prosecutors or officers of the law to seek arrest warrants from judges in order to bring in suspects or persons of interest identified during the course of their investigations.

Details found on an arrest warrant issued in Sonoma County include:

• Subject of the warrant or the individual to be detained
• Arrest charge or reason for seeking to arrest the individual
• Name and signature of the judge authorizing the arrest warrant
• Court where the subject of the warrant must appear
• Identification number of the arrest warrant
• Date and time of issue of the arrest warrant

Sonoma County Arrest Warrant Search

To see if there is an active warrant for an individual, you must contact the local law enforcement agency that might have issued the warrant. These include police departments and the sheriff’s office in Sonoma County. Some of these agencies offer arrest warrant search tools on their websites. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has a Warrant Search for finding active warrants authorized by the Adult Division of the county’s Superior Court.

Do Sonoma County Arrest Warrants Expire?

No. A Sonoma County bench or arrest warrant never expires. It can only be cleared if the subject of the warrant is arrested or dies.