About Your Sheriff's Office

Nevada County, created in 1851 from portions of Yuba County, was named after the mining town of Nevada City derived from the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains. The bordering state of Nevada used the same name 13 years later in 1864. We are a rural county, comprised of 974 square miles in Northern California, with a population just over 100,000. There are two incorporated cities and one incorporated town within our county, all of which have municipal police departments.

The law enforcement professionals of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, with a staff of 174 dedicated men and women are committed to serving our community to help make Nevada County a safe place to live, work and visit. Our services include all prevention, response, and investigation of crime in the unincorporated area of the county. In a rural environment, we patrol in both on and off- highway vehicles, boats, UTVs and motorcycles. We maintain the county jails, providing safety and security to the incarcerated population. We serve superior courts by providing court security at both the Nevada City and Truckee facilities and serve civil process and execution of lawful orders of the courts. We perform as the Coroner and Public Administrator functions pursuant to law.

We have administrative offices in both Nevada City and Truckee. We have two sub-stations in the community for staff to meet with reporting parties and victims. One in the community of Penn Valley and one near the entrance to Lake of the Pines.