Visiting In Orange County Men's & Women's Central Jail, Santa Ana

Visits in Orange County Jail take place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  You can have up to three visits per week, but only one visit per day with up to two people per visit (or 3 if the third person is under 5 years old).  Coordinating your visits with other friends and loved ones is important because if your girlfriend visits in the morning, and your mom comes later in the day, they will not allow the second visit.

Depending on which section of the jail an inmate is housed, visitors will either be able to sign up for a visitation or they will have to wait until their name is called. A visitor can expect to spend anywhere from 2 to 4 hours waiting for their turn to visit.  Visitors must have ID and register with the jail.  Cell phones, lighters, cigarettes, purses, etc will not be allowed into the visiting area. There are lockers available in the lobby if you are not comfortable leaving your possessions in your car. 

The length of visitation is supposed to be 30 minutes but is actually at the guards discretion.  On rare occasions, visits may go longer, but more often than not, they wind up being shorter.  The visit itself happens behind a glass window. You will talk through a telephone, but inmates report that it actually sounds pretty good (sometimes those telephones are hard to hear through). When you are going off to jail make sure to give your mom, girlfriend and anybody else a nice long hug - you will not have any contact visits while you are in jail (unless you are sentenced to the farm where they reportedly allow contact visits).

Visitors who have been released from a correctional facility within 60 days, unless the visitor is a spouse or blood relative of the inmate, is ineligible to visit. Penal Code section 4571 prohibits persons convicted of a felony, and who have served time in any California State Prison, from entering