In Ohio, a police chief is the top uniformed officer in his department. He (rarely she) is appointed by the mayor; sometimes, depending upon the city charter, only with the advice and consent (routinely given) of city council. A chief has arrest powers just as any other police officer does, but spends most of his time doing administrative work or making public appearances. Below the mayor but over the chief in most Ohio cities is a safety director (sometimes called a safety service director), a civilian who also oversees the fire department.
In Ohio, sheriffs have countywide jurisdiction. In urbanized counties, they tend to be limited to running the county jail, providing courthouse security and serving process in Common Pleas cases. In more rural counties, they and their many deputies do all this but also patrol any unincorporated areas outside of cities and villages.
[QUOTE=diggleblop]
I read somewhere, maybe here, that Police Chiefs in some states sometimes don’t have power to arrest someone, basically it’s just a political office position. Is that true?
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Never heard of that. Anything is possible, though. Every Chief I know of has power of arrest. They are sworn Peace Officers. Though that in itself does not grant the power of arrest.
How so? Because Wisconsin statute 939.22(22) defines Peace Officer as any person vested by law with a duty to maintain public order OR make arrests for crime.
In other words, in Wisconsin all cops are Peace Officers, but not all Peace Officers are cops.
What this means is, if a City charter were to dictate that one of the duties of Aldermen was to maintain public order, that would legally make them a Peace Officer.
At one time some city/town/village charters had language of that sort in their charter. Eventually most (all? ) wrote it out.
In New York City, the Chief of Police is the top uniformed officer in the department and is a full-fledged cop. The department as a whole is overseen by a civilian Police Commissioner, appointed by the mayor.
In New Jersey there has been a trend within the last few years for towns to have a police director instead of a police chief. The director is a civilian without police powers although in many cases he used to be a high ranking police officer. This is viewed as an attempt for the politicians to exercise more direct control and influence over the day to day operations of the department. A civilian director serves at the pleasure of the mayor and council and can be fired at anytime. Basically the mayor’s lapdog. Sworn police officers must be fired for cause. My town went to a director for a while but went back to a chief. It’s the same guy.
Bigger departments need to have the responsibilities spread out between two people and may have a director and a chief. The director handles the administrative aspects, budgets, contracts etc. The chief handles policy and procedures.
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
AFAICT, the men selected as detectives are policemen with experience who have demonstrated crime-solving skills while in uniform. A person named as a detective on a police force is generally considered to have a rank of sergeant or better on the force.
Also remember that in any profession similar to the military, to police, etc., there needs to be someone in charge of each individual operation they undertake. That person is answerable to higher authority, to be sure, but all those involved in the operation answer to him. Doesn’t it make sense that in a major-crime investigation, the detective who has the specialized training and demonstrated skills be the person put in charge?
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IN the military, this was called, “Don’t confuse your rank with my authority.” In essence, the lowest private MP/SP could pull over and arrest the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if he had probable cause.
So the whole detective/uniformed cop thing I think breaks down like this: the detectives, by virtue of experience and specialized training, have the skill sets to examine a crime scene and hopefully gather enough evidence to catch the perp. To this end, they have certain authority in the conduct in the investigation, up to and including giving orders or instructions to uniformed police officers of higher rank, in the furtherance of that investigation.
) wrote it out.