University of California, Santa Barbara

About the UCSB Police Department

The UCSB Police Department is comprised of approximately 43 sworn Police Officers that patrol the UCSB campus as well as the surrounding community of Goleta and the unincorporated city of Isla Vista. The UCSB campus student population is over 24,000 and the 6th largest in the UC system. Additionally, UCSB PD partners with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff department by providing officer staffing on a rotational basis to assist with policing efforts at the Isla Vista substation. The UCSB campus borders the town of Isla Vista seamlessly, which is composed of anywhere from 23,000 to 27,000 people in about a 1.8 square mile area. Dubious as it may be, UCSB is routinely ranked in the top 20 list of party schools in the nation with the campus seeing upwards of 100,000 calls for service annually evidenced by the well-known street parties of Halloween and Floatopia/Deltopia, where attendance ranges from 20,000 to 60,000 depending on the year. The shared enforcement of Isla Vista was one of the first places in the nation to utilize Community Oriented Policing which continues to this day. UCSB PD currently supports community outreach through approximately twenty various programs.