Chicago Police Department

The Chicago Police Department, commonly abbreviated CPD, is the primary law enforcement agency of the city of Chicago, Illinois, established in 1835 and among the oldest continuously operating modern police forces in the world. It is the second largest municipal police force in the United States after the New York City Police Department, employing more than 11,000 sworn officers and nearly a thousand civilian staff as of 2025, organized across 22 police districts covering the city's 237 square miles and roughly 2.7 million residents. The department operates under six bureaus, patrol, detectives, organized crime, organizational development, technical services and internal affairs, and is led by a Superintendent appointed by Chicago's mayor, with oversight from the Chicago City Council. Its scale and long history have made the CPD a frequently studied department in American criminology and policing research, both for its operational practices and for the department's own periods of internal reform.