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In 2016, there were 12,267 local (e.g., city, village) police departments.²³ These departments employed approximately 468,000 full-time sworn officers and 131,000 full-time civilians.²⁴ Included in these totals were a few police departments operating at the county level (county sheriff’s departments, not police departments, typically provide police services at the county level). About 65% of municipalities and towns in the United States do not have their own police department. Policing services in these areas are provided by the county in which the town is located (see below). The total number of local police departments in the nation is constantly changing, as some towns decide to form their own police department and others decide to dissolve theirs and rely on county sheriff’s departments instead. Decisions to disband a police department are usually based on financial considerations, as policing services are expensive.

Most of the 12,267 local police departments are quite small. Approximately 51% of all local departments (6,224 of 12,267) employ fewer than ten full-time officers,²⁵ but in total, these departments employ only about 5% of all officers. Only 5% of local departments (665 of 12,267) employ 100 or more sworn officers. These 665 departments employ the majority of all sworn officers. The most important takeaway here is that while most police departments in the nation are quite small, most police officers work in larger departments (see Figure 3.6).