The Sheriff's Department provides contract police and security services to all the trial courts throughout Los Angeles County, such as the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles

CONTRACT 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 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 47 separate courthouses serving the 9.2 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 400 courtrooms, delivers and supervises more than 1,000 in-custody criminal defendants, and screens approximately 50,000 people 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 Sheriffs Court Services Division as part of a plan to cut County costs and to unify and enhance courthouse security, making the Sheriff's Department responsible for court security in all trial courts throughout the county. 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 January 1, 1998 the Trial Court Funding Act required the courts to enter into contracts for the provision of law enforcement and security services. This contract provides annual revenue of nearly $110 million to the Sheriff's Department.