California’s Police State, in a Nutshell

There are hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers in California, spread over 700 some-odd agencies. Boutique departments are as small as a few cops, while others number in the thousands. There are municipal, k-12, college, county, special district, state, and federal cops all over the place. Additionally, there are US attorneys, district attorneys, judges, probation officers, and so forth. It’s quite an industry.

The list below doesn’t exist compiled together in this form anywhere else — and this is only the first twinkling of what’s to come. It’s the bare bones skeleton for the Police Files database. Everything else will be built out from a more complete version of this. Eventually, the database will go several levels deeper, including information on incidents involving individual cops, documents such as court records, and much, much more.

Sharing this as part of an incremental roll-out as development progresses. Trying to bring forward something new regularly, even though most of what’s happening now is behind the scenes raw data collection and web development.

And, so, here’s a pretty darned complete list California’s law enforcement agencies and detention facilities:

You scrolled this far, so you made it through a list of California’s ~700 law enforcement agencies and ~100 detention facilities. Congratulations. Note that displaying the data in this format, in one long “flat” webpage, illustrates the need for a database. It’s too much to consume all at once in a single view, not nearly as handy as the information could be.

*Not included are a number of federal agencies including fusion centers, inter-agency organizations such as task forces, probation departments, fire camps, juvenile detention facilities, incarceration-related halfway houses, and probably lots of other cogs in the wheel. But, this is a solid start. If you see something missing, major or minor, get in touch.