Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office


The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office is a local law enforcement agency that serves Santa Clara County, California. It provides general-service law enforcement to unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County, as well as incorporated cities within the county that have contracted with the agency for law-enforcement services such as Saratoga, Cupertino, and Los Altos Hills. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority also contracted with the Sheriff's Office for law enforcement service.

Sheriff

On December 15, 1998, Laurie Smith became the 28th person to hold the position of sheriff in Santa Clara County, California and the first woman law enforcement officer to hold the office of sheriff in the history of California.

Organization

The Department is divided into four major bureaus — Field Operations, Support Services, Jail Operations and Administrative Services.

Rank structure

Currently, the Sheriff's Office has 586 full-time sworn staff. These positions are broken down as follows:
NumberTitleInsignia
1
Sheriff
1
Undersheriff
2
Assistant Sheriff
10
Captain
15
Lieutenant
85
Sergeant
431
Deputy Sheriff

In addition to the full-time sworn staff, the Sheriff's Office has 65 Reserve Deputy Sheriffs. To support the entire operation, the Department employs 223 non-sworn, civilian staff.

Fallen officers

Since the establishment of the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office, seven officers have died while on duty.