Will I Have Any Trouble Winning Full Custody Against An Incarcerated Father? Please Advise!

My child is six and has lived with me her entire life. I have always been the primary (only) caretaker. I rent my own home, have supportive family, a vehicle, a full time job, take her to appointments, extracurriculars, and pay for her completely. I have never had any sort of criminal charges.

The father on the other hand has been racking up criminal charges for the last 15 years. I cannot remember all of them but there has been a felony robbery, domestic violence (against me), three DUIs (one was a hit and run that put a man in the hospital), several probation violations one being possessing bullets while on felony probation, the list goes on and on. His latest charge that he is currently in jail for is robbery (again, his other robbery charge was about 10 years ago). He stole something at a store and threatened an employee. He has a lawyer for this case but the lawyer does not think it is looking good for him apparently. He was offered a deal that he declined previously for a year with a strike.

He has no home, no job, no drivers license, no money, a crippling alcohol addiction. He has also done a plethora of other crimes and despicable things that I am aware of but there is no legal record of it. I am sure there are photos/screenshots of proof that I could dig up, but I am not sure if that will matter or not.

To add to this, he has another daughter that a family member was given custody of (or guardianship?) and he was given supervised visits, and never did any of the things that he was told he must do by the court. They have had his daughter for around 3 years and I don’t know what will happen now with this new charge if will even get visits at this point. The mother of his child is absent.

We have never at all gone to court regarding custody or child support. He has paid me some child support over the years but not steadily. We were on and off for a long time and he has been somewhat active in her life but never her caretaker. I have not filed previously because as of now he has not fought with me about taking her and I have been terrified if I do file they will give him some sort of custody or unsupervised visits. He has never once taken her alone in her life. He has “babysat” her in my home for a few hours at a time at my home and controlled by me (this was at a time he was more stable) or had supervised visits with his mom. Or has been around her while I am around.

Now that he is probably going to be gone for a long period of time, it makes me want to file now. Because if he is incarcerated, how would they give him any type of custody or visits? Would they or could they?

I am in CA. Please give me any guidance you can. Do I need a lawyer? I doubt he would “fight me” on anything considering his situation and that he has barely put in any effort to get his other daughter back.