The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department has a shortage of 18 deputies from its patrol ranks, with 14 others out on injuries.
To keep their frontline response up to the required levels, detectives are being rescheduled into patrol units.
The deputy sheriff's association says a longstanding issue with recruitment and retention is the one of the problems.
Undersheriff Barney Malekian says that new deputies will be joining the ranks in 2017, and the reassignment of the detectives is only temporary.