Court Services



It is the mission of the Court Services Division of the Sheriff's Department to provide professional law enforcement, security and support services to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. By far the largest court of general jurisdiction in the country, accounting for approximately 1/3 of the trial courts state wide, the Los Angeles Superior Court has nearly 600 bench officers working in 38 separate courthouses serving the 9.8 million county residents who are spread throughout the 4,000 square miles of Los Angeles County.



Each business day, Court Services Division provides bailiffs for more than 600 courtrooms, delivers and supervises more than 1,000 in-custody criminal defendants, and screens approximately 24 million annual visitors entering court buildings throughout the county. Court Services Division also provides special judicial protection services, serves bench warrants and restraining orders, and fulfills many other law enforcement and security services ordered by the court.



In 1994 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors merged the Marshal's Department then utilized solely by the municipal courts into the Sheriff's Court Services Division as part of a plan to cut County costs and to unify and enhance courthouse security. In September 1997, Governor Pete Wilson signed the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act into law and the responsibility for funding the courts was shifted from county government to the State of California. As of July 1, 2012, the Superior Court Security Act of 2012 required the Sheriff to enter into memorandum of understanding with the superior court specifying an agreed upon service level of court security services providing an annual revenue in excess of $150 million to the Sheriff's Department.



Within Court Services Division, the Sheriff's Department operates one of the largest prisoner transportation systems in the nation. Prisoner transportation services are provided on a contractual basis to thirty-two of the fifty-eight counties throughout the State of California, and to the Los Angeles Police Department.