California ended 2024 with 77,161 sworn officers statewide—down from 79,568 in 2019, according to a study released July 10, 2026 by the Public Policy Institute of California. That gap of roughly 2,400 positions persists even after staffing edged upward in both 2023 and 2024. The study was authored by Brandon Martin, Deepak Premkumar, and Mandi Acevedo.
The 3 percent statewide shortfall breaks unevenly across agency types. Municipal police departments lost 4 percent of sworn strength between 2019 and 2024. Sheriff's departments fell 2 percent. The California Highway Patrol recorded the steepest drop, down 5 percent from its 2019 baseline. The study identifies large agencies—those employing more than 100 sworn personnel—as the primary driver of the statewide deficit.
California's more than 400 law enforcement agencies collectively employ approximately 77,000 officers with arrest powers, at a combined cost of $28 billion in 2023. The state's current sworn-to-population ratio sits at 196 officers per 100,000 residents.
The Largest Agencies Carry the Most Weight—and the Most Strain
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department stood as the state's largest sheriff's agency in 2024, with nearly 8,900 sworn officers. The Los Angeles Police Department reported approximately 8,800 sworn personnel the same year. Both agencies operate at a scale that makes even small percentage vacancies significant in raw headcount terms.
The strain shows in overtime spending. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department expended over $500 million in overtime funding during 2024 alone to cover unfilled positions, according to the study. That figure illustrates the cost agencies absorb when recruitment and retention lag behind attrition.
Across California more broadly, overtime pay per officer climbed from an average of $10,000 to $25,000—a reflection of the gap between authorized strength and the officers actually available for patrol shifts.
Rural Departments Face a Different Kind of Crisis
At the opposite end of the spectrum, small agencies face operational limits that overtime budgets cannot fix. The study documents Sierra County maintaining 10 deputies and the town of Westmoreland employing just 3 officers. In 2024, California contained 177 agencies with fewer than 25 sworn officers and 188 agencies with 26 to 100 officers. Only 111 agencies exceeded 100 sworn personnel.
For some rural departments, vacancies have moved past budget problems into service interruptions. The Tehama County Sheriff's Department cut response services and intermittently halted active patrols due to staffing deficits, according to the study. That outcome—a department simply suspending patrol coverage—represents the far edge of what chronic understaffing produces.
Pay Trends and the Cost of Experience Lost
The study's compensation data tells a complicated story. Average base salary across California agencies dropped from $116,000 in 2011 to $110,000 by 2023. The authors attribute that decline to the departure of experienced senior personnel, whose higher salaries pulled the average upward when they were present and pulled it down as they left.
Agencies have tried to offset the experience drain through recruitment incentives. The Alameda Police Department introduced a $75,000 hiring bonus for newly sworn personnel—one of the more aggressive financial offers documented in the study. Departments have also broadened their recruitment approaches, expanding social media marketing, hosting specialized career information sessions, and relaxing restrictions on tattoos and grooming standards to widen the pool of eligible applicants.
Those measures reflect how departments are adjusting criteria and outreach when traditional pipelines fall short. Whether they close the gap between current headcount and 2019 levels remains an open question. The statewide count has moved in the right direction for two consecutive years, but 2024's total of 77,161 still trails the pre-pandemic baseline by more than 2,400 positions, with large agencies accounting for the bulk of that difference.
