THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY BY THOMAS MATHEW
What is it? The Department of Public Safety (DPS) is a government agency found on many levels including city or state. They hold the responsibility over many aspects of the safety of the general public including fire services, emergency medical services, law enforcement, rescue services, hazardous materials response, and even animal control! In most cases, the DPS is broken up into multiple agencies each in charge of one of the services listed above. This means that firefighters only do the duties of a firefighter and police officers only do the duties of police officers. Very few DPS’s in America (about 130) have an integrated system. This means
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that the full-time sworn personnel are cross-trained as police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Our very own Sunnyvale DPS uses this interesting system and is one of the safest cities in the country for four years in a row! Very few cities have been able to switch to the integrated system and manage it as well as Sunnyvale has. Many people may be confused with the differences between the Department of Public Safety and state/local police. It turns out, the two are generally synonymous with each other. Every agency has some slight differences that are a result of many factors including the community they are serving.
Levels of Jurisdiction One interesting fact about the DPS is that it can be found in many different levels including state, city, county, and special districts including school and hospitals! These different agencies vary immensely in size and style. For example, the Sunnyvale DPS has over 200 peace officers and has jurisdiction over the city of Sunnyvale, while the DPS of Texas has over 54,777 full-time sworn officers and has jurisdiction over the entire state of Texas. There are also DPS for school and hospitals. One such agency is the DPS of the University of Santa Cruz with similar services at a smaller scale. The United States
● The Department of Public Safety
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