San Jose Police Department
| San Jose Police Department | |
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| Abbreviation | SJPD |
Patch of the San Jose Police Department
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Logo of the San Jose Police Department
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| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1849 |
| Annual budget | $285 million |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction* | State of California, USA |
| Size | 178.2 square miles (462 km2) |
| Population | 1,000,000+ |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | 201 W. Mission Street San Jose, CA 95110 |
| Sworn members | 900 Officers |
| Unsworn members | 370 Civilian |
| Agency executive | Edgardo (Eddie) Garcia, Chief |
| Facilities | |
| Stations | 2 |
| Airbases | 1 |
| Helicopters | 1 |
| Fixed Wings | 1 |
| Website | |
| San Jose Police website | |
| Footnotes | |
| * Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction. | |
The San Jose Police Department (SJPD) is the police agency for San Jose, California, which has contributed to San Jose being one of the safest large cities in the United States. The San Jose Police Department is led by Chief of Police Edgardo (Eddie) Garcia.
In September 2007, the San Jose Police Department began making all its Calls for Service available to the public through a partnership with Crime Reports.com. San Jose is the first American city to make all 911 calls available via online "CrimeReports.com" maps. The 911 call data is updated daily.
The San Jose Police Department was founded in 1849. During its beginnings, the most common offenses recorded for the department were public intoxication and vagrancy, according to old jailhouse records. In 1880, the department was averaging 120 arrests per month, and the position of police chief was created. The chief also acted as the superintendent of the city jail, and by the late 1880s, the department had gone from 10 officers to 25. In the early 1905s, as the SJPD grew, more rules and regulations were instituted regarding police officers. Officers now needed to go through field training and revolver training.
The department, along with many others in the nation, changed with the introduction of the automobile and the advent of motorcycle units. The motorcycle unit mainly cited people for speeding and other traffic violations. San Jose was one of the first places to use radio and phone technology to help officers perform their duties. In 1925, the city council released the first rules and regulations manual. It was the precursor to the duty manual that the department currently uses. The San Jose Police Academy first started out as a police college for aspiring officers to earn four year bachelor's degrees with an emphasis on criminal justice. Men made up the entire police force up until 1945, when Ida Waalkes became the first female to be a sworn officer with the San Jose Police Department.
Community policing began to be used by the department in the early 1990s, as specific geographic areas were mapped out and assigned. This enabled officers to get to know the people and communities they patrolled, and is partially credited for keeping San Jose one of the safest large cities in America.
The uniform of the department consists of a dark navy blue shirt for sworn officers, and a light blue or white shirt for differing civilian classifications. On the left side of the chest is worn the departmental badge, or a patch replica on certain items. The badge of a sworn police officer is a silver seven-point star reading "San Jose Police", the officer's rank, and badge number. Gold-colored badges are issued to higher ranking police officers. Civilian staff are issued eagle-top or oval shaped shields depending on classification. The San Jose Police Department patch is worn on both sleeves, with a rocker denoting classification for civilian staff. Pants are regular navy blue uniform trousers with white piping running down the side of the leg.
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Wikipedia