Public Intoxication
Penal Code 647(f) — unable to care for your own safety, and release without charges
In California, being found in a public place under the influence of alcohol, a drug or a controlled substance, in a condition where the person cannot exercise care for their own safety or the safety of others, or where the person's condition interferes with or obstructs free use of a street, sidewalk or other public way, is disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
Treatment comes first where an officer is reasonably able to arrange it. When a person has violated that subdivision, a peace officer, if reasonably able to, places the person in civil protective custody and takes the person to a designated facility for the 72 hour treatment and evaluation of inebriates.
An officer who arrests someone without a warrant may release the person instead of taking them before a magistrate where the arrest was for intoxication only and no further proceedings are desirable, or where the person is delivered to a hospital or a treatment or service organization and no further proceedings are desirable.
For some of those releases, including where the officer finds insufficient grounds for a complaint, the record includes the release, and the arrest is then deemed a detention only, not an arrest. A release for intoxication only is not one of those listed.
Sources for this section (2)
- Penal Code 647 — Disorderly conduct
- Penal Code 849 — Release of an arrested person without a complaint
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed California attorney.