Sacramento (Calif.) Police Department records, 1860-1993

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Summary

Abstract:
The Sacramento Police Department Collection contains a wide range of material dating from 1860 to 1993. The majority of the collection is made up of mug books that date from 1860 to 1949 and jail registers that date from 1867 to 1973. The rest of the collection consists of other logbooks, various administrative records, and photographs. More than half of the photographs are portraits or group shots of the police force that date from the first half of the 20th century.
Extent:
412 Linear Feet (130 boxes of various sizes, 221 unboxed volumes, oversized items)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item and/or item number], [box and folder number], Sacramento Police Department Collection, CTY0002, Center for Sacramento History.

Background

Scope and content:

The Sacramento Police Department Collection contains a wide range of material dating from 1860 to 1993. The majority of the collection is made up of mug books that date from 1860 to 1949 and jail registers that date from 1867 to 1973. The rest of the collection consists of other logbooks, various administrative records, and photographs. More than half of the photographs are portraits or group shots of the police force that date from the first half of the 20th century.

Biographical / historical:

The Sacramento Police Department began in 1849 with the appointment of Marshall N. C. Cunningham and two deputies to patrol the city grid. It has since grown to include a police chief, more than 1,000 officers and other personnel, and six jurisdictions.

Acquisition information:
Transferred from the City of Sacramento Police Department in accessions 1995/013, 2004/031, and 2004/037, and the Sacramento City Clerk's Office in 1978 (1978/031).
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged into 5 series:

  • Series 1. Mug books, 1860-1949
  • Series 2. Jail registers and arrest logs, 1867-1973
  • Series 3. Other log books, 1927-1964
  • Series 4. Administrative material, 19029-1993
  • Series 5. Photographs, 1894-1988

Series 1. Mug books, 1860-1949. This series contains mug books created by the SPD from 1860 to 1949. The books vary in the information they contain beyond the arrestees' photographs, but common data includes names and aliases, physical descriptions, crimes committed, criminal histories, judgments, and death dates. While most of the books are arranged by arrest number and date, several books are dedicated to specific crimes, including safe-cracking, forgery, and pickpocketing, and specific categories of people, including International Workers of the World and other union members, juvenile offenders, female offenders, and various ethnic groups, including Chinese books. One book is simply labeled "Degenerates" and contains crimes of a sexual nature or arrestees from the LGBTQ community. There is a separate index called the City Gallery Index for most of the mug books that date from 1860 to 1921.

This series also includes books of wanted bulletins from around the country that date from 1899 to 1932, plus a folder of loose wanted bulletins, and bulletins mounted on two masonite boards. There is a separate index for some of the wanted books that date from 1910 to 1922.

Additionally, this series includes copies of other West Coast police departments and prisons' mug books that date from 1902 to 1934. SPD Captain Max P. Fisher, a leader in police identification techniques, was instrumental in the hand-copying of mug books from other cities and prisons in order to create a criminal card file database. Copied mug books are from San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Stockton, Long Beach, Denver, Portland, Tacoma, and Carson City, and Folsom and San Quentin state prisons. There also are indexes for some of the San Francisco, San Diego, and Oakland mug books.

Mug books are digitized and available for viewing at our Internet Archive page: https://archive.org/details/centerforsacramentohistory?query=mug+book. This series is arranged chronologically.

Series 2. Jail registers and arrest logs, 1867-1973. This series is made up of jail registers, jail register indexes, and arrest logs created by the SPD. Sacramento city jail registers date from 1867 to 1970, and April to July 1973. Registers include the prisoner's name, charge, date of arrest, and bond or deposit amount, the actions taken, and the name of the arresting officer. Jail registers through 1940 have been digitized and are available for viewing here: https://archive.org/details/cshjailregisters.

Also included are San Francisco jail register indexes from 1939 to 1946, but CSH does not have the corresponding registers in its collection. This series is arranged chronologically.

Series 3, Other log books, 1927-1964. This series contains various log books created by the SPD, including officer monthly time books, daily record books, traffic case logs, and prisoner movement logs. This series is arranged alphabetically.

Series 4. Administrative material, 1919-1993. This series consists of a variety of administrative records collected or created by the police department. These include material like police training manuals and handbooks; a large run of Speak Out memos, which was a program that gave police personnel the opportunity to provide ideas and feedback in order to improve communication and processes within the department; citizens committee reports on police practices; James Babcock's original artwork from 1970s Sacramento Bee police-related cartoons; 1920s city ordinance books and police department rules and regulations; American Parkway emergency access maps; department restructuring project materials; and other items.

Of note in this series are records from World War II that document the SPD's impounding of "alien enemy" cameras, radios, and firearms by order of the U.S. Department of Justice at the outbreak of the war. Almost all of the impounds are from people of Japanese descent. Records include property receipt books, letters from the property owners asking for their items back at the end of the war, and correspondence between those individuals, the SPD, and the federal government. The records show that after the war it was difficult for people to recover their belongings even with a receipt because the SPD was not immediately authorized to return them and eventually turned all the property over to the federal government. The correspondence shows Sacramento Chief of Police Alex K. McAllister's frustration with the federal government's handling of the situation.

This series also includes two videotapes: one showing footage of the Rooney facility groundbreaking ceremony and a police and firemen's mass, and one showing the police chief at a city council meeting on assault weapons. This series is arranged alphabetically.

Series 5. Photographs, 1894-1988. This series is made up of a range of photographs taken of or by the SPD. The majority are portraits of police chiefs and members of the force from 1895 to 1974. There are several collages of police force portraits dating from between circa 1915 and 1924 (some of these collages have been deconstructed for preservation purposes), and a panoramic group shot from circa 1919. Also included are Baconbombers Pig Bowl team photos, a photo of the circa 1925 police baseball team, FBI National Academy class pictures from circa 1940 to 1960, and photos of police officers in action taken for marketing purposes. This series is arranged alphabetically.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research, except for one book of insane commitments that is restricted from access.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item and/or item number], [box and folder number], Sacramento Police Department Collection, CTY0002, Center for Sacramento History.

Location of this collection:
551 Sequoia Pacific Blvd.
Sacramento, CA 95811, US
Contact:
(916) 808-7072
csh@cityofsacramento.org
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