Under the philosophy of "Community Based Policing" the Santa Maria Police Department strives to protect and serve the citizens of Santa Maria and provides all individuals within our City limits with a full range of professional police services. These services include maintaining civil order, preventive patrol, investigations, traffic control and enforcement, criminalistics, crime prevention, drug enforcement and drug abuse prevention. The goal of our "Community Based Policing" philosophy is threefold: first, to reduce crimes; second, to reduce our citizens' fear of crime; and third, to work in partnership within our community in an effort to improve the quality of life for all citizens of Santa Maria.

As the primary law enforcement agency for the City of Santa Maria, the department operates on a 24-hour basis and handles approximately 160,000 calls for service each year. The Department has 129 sworn officers and 51 full-time support personnel. In order to provide the community with the highest level of service available, the Police Department is administratively divided into the three divisions, Administration, Operations, and Support.