SAN JOSE — The San Jose Police Department has announced that it is redrawing its coverage districts later in the year in an attempt to streamline sluggish patrol response times and more efficiently deploy officers.
The changes, which will be instituted Nov. 8, will also entail shifting patrol officers’ responsibilities to whole districts over specific geographical zones. The goal, officials say, is to maintain continuity when officers are either absent or move out of patrol and take their institutional knowledge with them.
The total number of patrol districts will also be reduced from 16 to 12, though districts that cover historically distinct areas like Little Saigon, Evergreen, Alviso, and the Rose Garden will be kept largely intact, police announced in a Tuesday news release. An interactive map of the planned patrol district changes has been posted on the San Jose city website.
Police are pledging that the redrawn districts will produce faster response times and fewer delayed calls, and “more consistent police coverage across neighborhoods.”
“Our goal is simple: better service for the public and better support for our officers,” Police Chief Paul Joseph said in a statement. “This new patrol structure allows us to respond more quickly, supervise more effectively, and stay connected to the communities we serve, without losing sight of what’s always mattered.”
Response times have been a continual struggle for SJPD. A 2024-25 city audit report found that the citywide average response time for so-called Priority 1 calls — involving imminent danger to life or major property loss — was 8.1 minutes, 33% slower than the target time of 6 minutes. Priority 2 calls, which involve actual or potential injury or property damage, had a citywide average response time of 27.8 minutes, or more than two-and-a-half times slower than the target of 11 minutes.
In statements accompanying the news release, City Manager Jennifer Maguire called the redistricting “a thoughtful, data-driven approach,” and Mayor Matt Mahan said the department is “modernizing police districts to reflect how San Jose has grown — and where calls for service actually happen.”
The genesis of the planned redistricting dates back to 2020, when the City Council allocated $350,000 to study a plan to better align districts with available police staffing. In San Jose, that figure is currently at 1,027 sworn officers, yielding a ratio of 1.03 officers per 1,000 residents, compared to the average national ratio of about 2.5.
Police said the current patrol district map has not been updated since the turn of the century. Back then, projected staffing was supposed to reach at least 2,000 officers by now, but those estimates were obliterated by the Great Recession, pension battles, and competitive hiring challenges. A city memo outlining the new redistricting plan, authored by Capt. Stephen Donohue and signed by Joseph, states that “that the prior 16-district structure no longer aligned with current staffing levels or workload demands.”
The memo adds that working under the 2000-era district boundaries, utilizing traditional geographical beat assignments, “frequently resulted in uneven workload distribution, calls being held for specific officers, and uncovered beats due to limited staffing.”
The new plan has been piloted and requires internal department reworkings among dispatchers, patrol division captains and sergeants, and officers ahead of the November implementation date. Donohue and Joseph state that the department is seeking to preserve “long-standing community relationships,” but that the current beat model hinged too heavily on individual officers.
“Due to staffing limitations, many beats were frequently unfilled for entire shifts. This often resulted in uneven coverage and reliance on a limited number of officers for localized knowledge,” the memo states.
Under the new district and coverage model, the police department touts that “officers operate as part of a district team responsible for the entire district rather than a single beat.”
“This approach allows multiple officers to develop knowledge of the same neighborhoods, businesses, and recurring issues, providing more consistent coverage and reducing service gaps when staffing fluctuates,” according to the memo. “Rather than losing beat knowledge, the department maintains it at a broader district level and with greater continuity.”
The memo also requests a $150,000 council allocation to fund software and other infrastructural costs tied to implementing the redistricting and officer redeployment.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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