Sheriffs and Police

[mikewhitney]

As I heard it, the Sheriff is the elected official in charge of law enforcement within any county. This person is responsible for keeping peace and pursuing any criminal activity. (The duties of the Sheriff in my county seem mostly to be constrained to the county jail facilities and to the court protection duties.)

The police in America, starting with Boston in the mid 1800s, maybe, were formed by city governments, possibly to handle city issues, not specifically to do the work already done by the Sheriff.

The main thing then is that a city could disband its police department. The county then could increase the number of Sheriff deputies in order to do the same work. So, apart from cities with corrupt police departments, is there anything that is particularly changed by disbanding a city's police department?

[Cow Poke]

In many areas, the Sheriff's department controls vast areas of often sparsely inhabited territory. But they have different duties, as well.

In most locales, the Sheriff's department will serve civil papers, oversee evictions, and things like that, as well as administer responsibility for the county courthouse.

Local police departments are committed to crime fighting and community policing.

In small towns, where there is no police department, the Sheriff's department often takes on responsibilities for the criminal situations as well as the civil ones.

[Cow Poke]

I might add that, since the Sheriff is elected, he/she comes up for reelection every 2 to 4 years, depending on the county's charter.
AS such, the Sheriff's department can be a whole lot more political than the local police department, which is run by a Police Chief under a city safety director and/or city council or city manager.

As I mentioned before, when I considered switching from PD to SO, my deputy friend cautioned me that he had a whole list of people he couldn't arrest, because they were supporters of the Sheriff.