Remember, we don’t have single issue elections.
In my county, voted for Sheriff last year, and we’ll vote again in 2009. At that same election, we’ll also vote for the Mayor of Seattle, the County executive, city and county council seats, probably mayors (or executives) of some of the smaller cities in the region, school board members, possibly some judges, other various elected offices, and a number of initiatives and referendums.
People might not show up to vote for the sheriff, but they’ll show up to vote for other things on that list & vote for the sheriff while doing so. It would be difficult to get your friends together and take the election (unless you’ve got a lot of friends). However, in the right places, at the right times, “Sheriff” could be one of those elections that you win by having a friendly sounding name.
Especially because in a lot of localities, the ballot doesn’t indicate party affiliation for local offices. In those cases, a lot of people don’t have a lot to go on when voting for say, city comptroller or county coroner or municipal court judge or even sheriff. I mean, I would recognise my county sheriff’s name, but I couldn’t really tell you anything else, except that I think she’s a woman, which is unusual.
So, in practise, how well do elections do at putting the best man for the job in power? I can’t imagine caring enough to find out about my city coroner. I would guess even being first on the list would be enough to win.
Some, many even, places don’t have single issue elections; however, there are still some, many even, places that do. Usually, though, IIRC, those are special elections.
May I offer a few anecdotes: my father was a Sheriff in a small, rural Iowa County. He always won his elections handily, and was therefore courted by big-time politicians (including Ronald Regan and George Bush) to show up and help when they were campaigning in the area. The job of Sheriff is somewhat political, and folks like the idea of a popularly elected guy laying down the law, instead of some appointed “outsider”.
He was popular from working for the county as deputy, and other jobs, for many years. He campaigned by showing up at local events, parades, putting up posters, and such.
One time, a guy he had arrested once ran against him as sort of a grudge, but didn’t get any serious support.
He had a situation once where a murder was committed - where 99% of the activities leading up to the crime were in his county, but the body was found a mere 50 feet over the county line, meaning the sheriff in the next county had to prosecute the crime. The other sheriff jokingly accused him of moving the body just to avoid the trial.
Duckster, U.S. Marshals and their deputies also chase, apprehend and transport Federal prisoners.
The INS doesn’t exist anymore; it’s now Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as part of the post-9/11 overhaul of U.S. law enforcement.
Something else that just occurred to me. Rarely, when the government of a city or town is completely bankrupt and/or incompetent, the state police or sheriff will assume law-enforcement responsibility for it. This happened to East St. Louis, Illinois, a few years ago, IIRC. The city was broke and couldn’t even pay for basic police patrols.
Or they subcontract. My town does just that. Rather than organize and staff a Yucaipa Police Department they contract with the San Bernardino County Sheriffs department to provide police protection, even thought we are an incorporated city.
The Washington State Patrol has two primary divisions: State Troopers (highway patrol) and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement (enforces laws regulating things like big semi trucks - formerly called “Weight Control” because their main duty was weighing the commercial trucks.)
The troopers have always been armed, but the CVE officers (like my dad) were unarmed until just a few years ago. The CVEs were finally armed due to the sad fact that there are people who will take potshots at anybody in a police uniform, so the CVEs were as likely to get shot at as the troopers.
As to electing the sheriff, the election usually seems to be between the incumbent sheriff and a challenger who is usually a police chief in a city within that county. When a sheriff retires, the undersheriff (2nd in command) usually runs for the job, against a police chief. And sometimes, when the sheriff’s underlings don’t like him, the undersheriff or even a deputy will run against their boss (and sometimes even wins). So those running for the job are almost always experience law enforcement officers. My dad once considered running for sheriff.
amarinth - I’ve always wondered: what exactly is the difference between the King County Police and the King County Sheriff’s Department? Do both agencies have jurisdiction throughout King County? Do the KCP handle all the incorporated areas, while the KCS handles the unincorporated? Is this because King County is pretty much one big city? Is there also a Seattle Police Department? Why is the sky blue?
Phase42, your question reminded me of a place I spent a few years in: Arlington County, Virginia. Said county has no incorporated cities within it, yet it does have a police force and a Sheriff. I’ve seen both Arlington County Police Officers and Arlington County Deputy Sheriffs on patrol.
One thing to clarify is the term “police” can be a little vague. The term police has an implication of managing, regulating, patrolling the populace. Federal authorities like the FBI don’t really do this. The FBI is mostly just an investigative office. While they definately will apprehend criminals they investigate they aren’t dispatched to oversee events and typically aren’t uniformed as a deterrent. The ATF is primarily used for regulation and enforcement of existing laws. They do not patrol and actively prohibit gun crimes.
Law Enforcement and Police aren’t necessarily synonyms.
I generalized. You’re right. Sometimes, there are single issue elections.
I was trying to draw a comparison between the annual first Tuesday after the first Monday* election and other election systems where a voter might not regularly, if ever, see two pages worth of questions.
*This is, again, a generalization. There are many state and federal rules dictating when and where ballots may be cast for various elections. Not all elections happen on what is commonly, but not always, called “Election Day.”
Phase42. I looked, because I didn’t know. So far as I can tell, King County Sheriff’s Office is the KCPD’s official name. (I’m finding a lot of references to Congressman Reichert (formerly Sheriff) with King County police department. Or links to the police department that take you to the sheriff’s home page.) Sue Rahr is currently the sheriff. Here’s their jurisdiction map (there are times when I forget how big unincorporated King County is. There’s a whole lot of nothing there. You have to hit Enumclaw (or go past Skykomish) before you’ve left the county.) There is definitely a Seattle Police Department. There’s also a University of Washington PD. I know they have cars; I don’t know if they have guns. Many of the cities in the greater Seattle area (even some of the really tiny ones) have their own police departments that perform at least some police services and duties. And because.
In the state of Texas, I believe the Highway Patrol is the state police force (part of the Texas Department of Public Safety), then you have your various smaller police forces (I’m fuzzy on how this works, but it probably is similar to what everyone else has described) right on down to local police departments. Texas A&M University (with 45,000 students, including several thousand who live on campus) has it’s own University Police force, who have full police powers throughout any county in Texas where a Texas A&M facilty is located (I’m told this includes most of Texas, as Texas A&M has some vast holdings throughout the state). I don’t recall if they are armed or not.
In any case, when operating off campus, there’s usually a specific reason to, and they tend to work with whichever police department would usually have jurisdiction in an area. I do recall a couple of months ago where there was a car accident off campus (in the city of College Station) and the University PD was out there directing traffic and talking to the people from the two crashed cars. Presumably this worked out because they happened to be closer where they were on campus to the accident than the city police were off campus at the time.
The Texas Rangers, from what I’ve read, is basically Texas’s equivilant to other states’ investigative agencies (such as the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, the only other such state agency I know the name of off hand). They used to basically be state lawmen who went from place to place fighting crime, didn’t wear badges for a good long time (feeling that a shiny badge made too tempting a target for an outlaw) and occasionally also got involved in military matters (the Texas Rangers fought alongside the US Army during the Mexican American War, and were amongst the troops who rode into Mexico City at the end of the war). Nowadays it’s apparantly a pretty small and tough club to get into, with only a little over a 100 Rangers on active duty.
The OP mentioned sheriffs whose job it was to do the footwork for the local courts. In Texas, IIRC, we have Constables who do that. They apparantly also have arresting powers here, and drive police cruisers with the flashy lights on the top. I once saw a Constable peel out of the parking lot in front of his office to pull someone over who ran a red light at the corner.
A random question that has been bugging me for a while now: What hot persuit rules are there for Military law enforcement agencies, such as the Military Police (Army) or the Security Police (Air Force)? Like say some kooky guy pulls a gun and robs a convenience store at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, and makes it off base while the SPs are chasing him. Are they allowed to continue the persuit off base into San Antonio proper, or do they have to radio it in and hope the SAPD or Highway Patrol can catch up with the guy?
There’s a similar situation in Arlington County, Va. The county has both a sheriff’s office and a police department. There are no incorporated areas within the county. I believe they split it up in the same way that Cuyahoga County, Ohio, does, where there are no unincorporated areas. The police handle the patrolling and investigating duties and the sheriff’s office handles the transportation, court, etc.
One of the things I find curious with the US system of local (town, city) police forces is that under the Australian system of state police, the powers that be like to keep individual police officers moving. If they can, I think they move them every two years to another “Local Area Command”. This is to make them more distant and impartial, or in other words, to ensure they don’t make too many friends in any given local community.
My mother lives in a little village with a population of 250 (this includes outlying farms, so it’s probably really about 100 - 150 in town). It’s a friendly little place where nobody locks their cars or homes, and it has a little one-man police station. The police station has chickens pecking at the grass in the front yard. It’s that kinda town, and the police absolutely love to get an assignment like that. However, in order to be considered for a two year stint in a little town like that, police officers have to do their time in the toughest, most gang and drug infested suburbs of Sydney first, and then again on their return. Similarly, the local cop in that village will never set up a breath testing or speed trap on the highway there; he will be asked to go and do it in the next town, and that town’s policeman will come to his. This is to avoid having a speeding driver told, “Oh g’day Ted. You still coming fishing this weekend?” instead of “Good afternoon driver. I’ve just clocked you at 83 in a 60 zone…”
I’m wondering if a small town US sheriff or such might get “stale” and corrupt after working there for many years, and if there are any systems in place to prevent that.
I know that many certainly become corrupt in the U.S. and we don’t usually have systems like yours. Yours seems like it could be good in some ways but I always thought that it was nice when I was a teenager and we busted for fairly minor things and the police would simply call or take us home to our parents because they knew them. Likewise, the police knew creative ways to solve some problems because they really knew the people and community,
Exactly. The movement in the US lately has been to more “community policing,” where the assigned officers are in the same neighborhood for extended periods. That way they get to know the rhythm of the place and can spot something “odd” more easily.
With the Washington State Patrol, the troopers who do highway patrol are required to live within 15 minutes of their patrol, I believe. (I know a WSP who had to move 35 miles because he couldn’t get to his beat in time. Well… not legally. I don’t officially know of the time where he made it there on time or how fast he had to drive to get there. :D)
There are some jurisdictions where the newly minted troopers would prefer to be, but they put in their time elsewhere before they have the seniority to request a location.
It can have some similar effects as a mandatory rota, I suppose.
Well, there are situations in which they would wear their trademark FBI windbreakers while they perform certain duties. While they aren’t uniformed per se, they do occasionally operate in situations where they visibly display their authority.
