050-23: Police Department

In order to maintain a safe environment, the campus Police Department is empowered to provide law enforcement and security services to the campus community.

The UCSF Police Department’s primary objective is to maintain a safe environment that is free of crime and disorder, enforcing the law in a fair and impartial manner, recognizing both statutory and judicial limitations of police authority and the constitutional rights of all persons.

In turn, the UCSF Police Department strives to achieve this goal through strategic policing, integrity, respect, and strong community partnerships. The agency’s vision and policing philosophy provide the direction for delivery of law enforcement services focused on a proactive problem-solving partnership with their community. The UCSF Police Department has also adopted its crime prevention motto, "Together for a safe and crime free campus," which is used to promote community participation and commitment to the police-community partnership.

A. All University of California sworn police officers have full police powers statewide, with primary jurisdiction on the ten campuses of the University of California, the area within one mile of the exterior boundary of each campus, and the area in or about other grounds or properties owned, operated, controlled, or administered by The Regents.

B. The UCSF Police Department's service area includes UCSF’s Parnassus Heights Campus, Mission Bay Campus, Mount Zion Campus, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital of Oakland, China Basin Campus, San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as well as other medical and support locations operated by UCSF throughout San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.

C. The UCSF Police Department is a service-oriented organization charged with providing the very best public safety services to the campus community using a collaborative community-policing model and philosophy. Police patrol services and security services are provided 24 hours per day, every day at all San Francisco and San Mateo County sites. The UCSF Police Department is responsible for all related aspects of law enforcement services and criminal investigation. UCSF Police Officers are responsible for the detection and suppression of all criminal activities related to the UCSF campus in California.

The UC Police departments share a central community oriented policing philosophy and maintain on-going collaboration; frequently calling upon each other for support. The University of California has a system-wide Police Special Response Team to respond to incidents requiring higher level crowd management training and equipment. The team is staffed by sworn personnel from all 10 UC campus police departments.

Each UC Police department also staffs a Detective function to investigate crimes and other cases reported by citizens and the Patrol Officers.

In addition to these standard police divisions, several UC Police departments also staff more specialized police and public safety units, including bomb squads, crime prevention, police K-9 units, motorcycle units and others.

The UCSF Police is configured into five sub-divisions under the leadership of the Chief of Police. 

The Department is organized as follows:

• Office of the Chief of Police
• Field Services Division
• Security Services Division
• Emergency Management Division
• Professional Standards Division

The Office of the Chief of Police is responsible for:

• Overall leadership, direction, and delivery of police, security, emergency management and public safety services
• Strategic and financial planning
• Labor relations
• Community and intergovernmental relations

The Field Services Division includes:

• Patrol operations
• Investigations unit
• Traffic enforcement and accident investigation
• Special events
• Security protection
• 911 Emergency Communications Center (ECC)
• Property and evidence
• Crime analysis

The Security Services Division is responsible for:

• Security guard services

The Emergency Management Division exists to assist the campus community by implementing and coordinating programs and procedures for:

• Emergency planning and mitigation
• Unusual occurrence response and recovery
• Dissemination of emergency information
• Emergency response

The Professional Standards Division is responsible for:

• Accreditation by performing compliance reviews of all CALEA standards
• Conducting internal affairs and background investigations
• Departmental training
• Recruitment and hiring of personnel

Contact responsible office with any questions.

• UCSF Campus Code of Conduct
• California Education Code, State of California: University of California Police, Section 92600
• California Penal Code, State of California: Peace Officers, Section 830.2 (c)
• UCSF Police Department Manual