In the U.S., why are County Sheriffs elected officials?
Why don’t they just go apply for the job and get it that way? I understand they are in charge of different degrees of service depending on each state, but why is this a political position?
Also, is it strictly in the U.S. that Sheriffs are elected?
Whats even more intersting is in some places it is a partisan position (i.e. there is a Democrat and a Republican and possibly a 3rd party candidate) but in other places it is a non-partisan position (there are N {usually 2} candidates, but no partty attached to them). Not sure if this a statewide thing or not.
Brian
Sheriffs aren’t elected in Canada. (Nor are they law enforcement officers - they’re court officials, charged with enforcing the civil orders of the courts.)
It seems to be an American peculiarity to have so many officers elected - not only sheriffs, but also district attorneys, judges, etc. Most other Western democracies have those people appointed for careers in the public administration system.
I remember reading that this was due to American fondness for municipal self-government in the 18th century. Any system where those posts are filled by appointments from some higher authority naturally involves some degree of centralization. This was undesirable, maybe for democratic concerns (hey, we can run our affairs on our own, we don’t need anybody doing that for us!) or maybe simply for practical reasons - if the state capital is severa days’ journeys away, managing things on the local level has obvious advantages. So most states chose to grant their municipalities these rights, and opted to have the officers elected.
That is very similar to what the scope of their position is here too . However, it does vary greatly from state to state and even county to county.
According to Wikipedia, yes: Sheriff - Wikipedia
The one thing that sheriffs are obliged to do under the “common law” (not strictly that body of law, but the standard U.S. processes and customs, adhered to in most if not all states) is to be the agents charged with serving and carrying out the processes and orders of the courts. In most counties, however, this constitutes a minimal proportion of what they do. (Typically sheriffs have one or two suit-wearing “civil deputies” for whom this is the major element of their duties.)
Prior to the establishment of state police forces and their expansion from highway patrol into criminal law enforcement, the sheriff’s deputies were also the principal law enforcement officers available in non-urbanized areas. And in fact the sheriff is by law in most places the person in charge of law enforcement within his country, though the wise sheriff defers to the captain or major in charge of the state police unless he is a retired one himself. (This accords with the “there needs to be ONE person in charge where orders need to be given” wisdom. If the Sheriff is that person, or if he officially and intentionally yields it to the State Police Captain, unity of command is preserved.) With the advent of the state patrols, the two jobs have usually become overlapping and done in cooperation, with the sheriff’s department more sensitive to local pressures on where patrolling and enforcement needs beefing up and the state unit taking the necessary broader view that everyone needs protection. If not looked at from a “why two when one would do” viewpoint, there are advantages in combining state independence from local pressure with local sensitivity to need, state taxes paying for partial coverage and local taxes increasing that as much or as little as the taxpayers choose, etc.
Finally, in many states the sheriff runs the local jail, in which (a) persons arrested and arraigned and being held for trial, and/or (b) persons serving a sentence of less than a set term, usually six months or one year, are incarcerated.
In urbanized areas the county sheriff is still a standard office, but ordinarily without one or both of the optional duties. The Sheriff of New York serves an important function in serving a mass of civil-court legal papers to businesses headquartered in Manhattan on a daily basis.
They’re elected in Ohio, and always have been. Ohio law provides for election of ALL county officials, including any judges, three commissioners, treasurer, auditor, coroner, etc. IIRC, only Summit County (the greater Akron area) has an elected county executive and council, with all other officers appointed.
Americans have generally preferred to elect local officials, and that became virtually carved in stone during the Progressive Era, when it was thought that popular election would better ensure integrity, accountibility and responsiveness to the public will. Hasn’t always worked that way, obviously, but that was the thinking, at least.
An Ohio county sheriff (though his many deputies and plainclothes staff) runs the county jail, provides security for the county courthouse and other county facilities, patrols unincorporated areas not otherwise policed, looks for fugitives, and serves legal process when asked or required.
Here is some interesting background information on elected sheriffs. Among the highlights: [ul]Sheriffs are elected on a partisan basis in 40 states and on a non-partisan basis in 6 others. []However, within those 46 states, a few counties either always have had or have switched to appointed sheriffs. []Sheriffs are appointed in RI, and the office doesn’t exist in AK, CT, and HI. [*] Elected sheriffs became popular during the Jacksonian Era.[/ul]The word “sheriff” apparently is a corruption of shire-reeve, which has a delightfully Tolkein-ish sound.
In many areas, the sheriff’s office still provides the primary law enforcement service in rural/unincorporated areas.
among the most CORRUPT of elected officials. Just about all of the local counties (Plymouth, Norfolk, Essex) have had sheriifs who wound up in jail-eith its bid rigging for repairs to the local jails, or selling jobs to friends, they are a most unsavory lot. I’ve often wonderd why county government cannot be abolished-it seems like a wasteful remannt of 18th century government. :smack:
To some extent, county government has been abolished in Mass. Middlesex, Berkshire, Essex, Hampden and Worcester counties have all been abolished, as have Franklin, Hampshire, and Barnstable, which are in the process of setting up “regional councils”
But who would govern the non-urban areas? Townships in a lot of places don’t have their own infrastructure to do things themselves.
In North Carolina, townships are just “lines on the map” – no government whatsoever is connected to them; they were imposed by military governor during Reconstruction and function only for title-deed and tax purposes. I don’t have cites, but I believe much of the South has the same small-counties/no township government structure. (After having worked with quite functional small rural town (=township) governments in New York for over 16 years, it’s a startling change.)