DPS is responsible for statewide law enforcement, vehicle regulation, homeland security and such other duties as the Governor of Oklahoma may proscribe.

One clear indication of the arrival of the automobile age in Oklahoma was the shocking number of people killed in vehicular accidents - about five hundred a year by the mid-1920s.

Criminals soon discovered that the same system of law enforcement that was powerless to halt the rising tide of traffic fatalities was equally inept at stopping them.

Marland, the 10th Governor of Oklahoma, made a bid for a state police to the legislation and called it the Department of Public Safety.

In early May 1937 he had the basic framework on paper and issued a statewide call for recruits to become Oklahoma's first highway patrolmen.

The Department of Public Safety, with an annual budget of over several hundred million dollars, is one of the larger employers of the State.

The Department receives the revenue for its budget from three major areas: yearly appropriations, grants from the federal government, and fees.

Expenditures made by the Department are divided into three major areas: salaries and benefits for employees (54%), operation expenses (37%), and equipment (6%).