By Jorge Casuso
March 20, 2026 -- For the first time in more than two decades, the Santa Monica Police Department is fully staffed and has received nearly 400 new applicants this year, City officials said.
The "milestone" was noted in a staff report City Manager Oliver Chi will present to the City Council on Tuesday updating the Realignment Plan approved by the City Council last October.
The plan boosts police deployment and aggressively prosecutes misdemeanor crimes as part of a carrot-and-stick approach that offers services and housing to the homeless as an alternative to jail.
According to the update, under Police Chief Darrick Jacob, SMPD has "fully implemented the Realignment deployment model" and now consistently deploys between 8 and 10 officers per day within the Downtown core.
The officers are supported by "dedicated bicycle patrols, multi-use vehicle teams working the beach and parking lots, and weekly coordination with the Homeless Liaison Program team."
According to the update, the Crime Impact Team (CIT) is now operating with a specialized team of 4 officers and 1 sergeant and regularly organizes retail theft operations in the Downtown area with the help of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID).
The CIT's operations target residential burglary crews, robbery crews and organized retail theft groups, resulting in 8 felony arrests related to organized retail theft.
SMPD has also added 2 full-time traffic officers as part of an effort to curb Fatal and Severe Injury (FSI) crashes that soared to a record 62 in 2024 before dropping to 52 last year ("Fatal, Severe Injury Crashes Fall," March 6, 2026).
With the City’s approval of 10 over-hire positions, the department "has added new officers and stabilized staffing levels across patrol and specialized units."
The department currently has 23 open background investigations and has received 391 new applications since January 1, according to the report.
While the budgeted force has seldom, if ever been fully filled, a flood of retirements and a dearth of new recruits had resulted in a record shortage of officers four years ago ("Santa Monica Police Force Faces Record Shortage of Officers," April 15, 2022).
In 2023, the force hired 18 new recruits, bringing the total number of officers to 218, ten shy of the 228 officers budgeted ("Police Department Nearing Full Force," October 17, 2023).
Meanwhile, the City Attorney’s Criminal Unit -- which has hired a new Legal Assistant and a Senior Legal Analyst authorized under the Realignment Plan -- has seen a 40 percent increase in case submissions in the last quarter of 2025, compared to the same period in 2024.
"Upon implementation of the Realignment deployment model, the City Attorney’s Office has filed on approximately 88 percent of all fileable cases from October through December 2025, a significant improvement over the approximate 65 to 70 percent filing rate based on total submissions seen previously," the report noted.
The Realignment Plan also calls for a Downtown Police Substation at Santa Monica Place Mall that began construction on March 6 and is expected to be completed by the end of the month.