Within Bay Area police departments, the residency rates of sworn officers varies dramatically. Of the 29 local police departments and human resource offices we contacted, 16 provided us with relevant data; rates among them ranged from a low of 4 percent residency in Antioch to 83 percent in Vacaville.
In California, local agencies and districts don't require employees to work in the jurisdictions they live in, and police departments typically cast a much wider recruiting net than the immediate community. Any number of reasons might explain why officers in certain cities don't choose to live there, from housing affordability, to quality of life, to the extent and focus of a police department's recruitment efforts.
Each circle in the map below represents one police department, scaled in size to the number of sworn officers in its ranks. As shown in the legend, the circle's shade indicates the percentage of officers who reside in that city; the darker the circle, the smaller the percentage. Click on each circle for the specific breakdown.
[MAP UPDATE AND CORRECTION (1/22/15): following our public records request, the City of Berkeley submitted residency records for the BPD's 167 sworn officers; a previous version of the map stated that there were 137 sworn officers in the Santa Clara Police Department. There are actually 140 sworn officers.]
Note: We also contacted the following greater Bay Area police departments, which have either denied or not yet responded to our requests for police officer residency data. The map will be updated if this data is made available to us.
Redwood City; Richmond; San Mateo; Daly City; Pleasanton; Fairfield; Stockton; Watsonville
Additionally, police departments in San Leandro, Hayward and Vallejo told us they are in the process of compiling the data but have yet to deliver it.