The Jackson Police Department was founded in 1822, one year after the founding of city. In 1873, badges and uniforms were provided to officers, and in 1878, the department assigned its first specialized officer, a "first detective". At that time, JPD was the largest of 27 police departments accredited in Mississippi. In 2025, the center continued to struggle compared to similar facilities around the U.S. Rarely ever was it staffed or capable of using the technology leaders claimed to be used. In 2023,
NPR reported that Jackson's homicide rate in 2021 was about 14 times the national rate, and "the under-staffed Jackson Police Department has struggled to keep up with 30 thousand calls for service per month" and a "stubborn crime problem". In response, the state legislature in 2023 expanded the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Capitol Police into an area in Jackson called the Capitol Complex Improvement Zone, an area with a larger white population than the rest of the city. A federal commission found the response "unreasonable, unjustified" and "clearly unwarranted", and that the Jackson officers then engaged in a "pattern of deceit", with each officer falsely claiming he had not fired a shot, until shells collected by the highway patrol were surrendered under
federal grand jury order, and
FBI laboratory tests confirmed that they had been fired by city police shotguns. ==Notable people==