I recently had a discussion with someone wondering what a sheriff does that police don’t. Near as I can tell the difference is a process server. That’s it.
Can’t we save millions by ending sheriffs? Is there a reason we want them? Are they doing something different than the local police?
(FTR: I have not had any involvement with sheriffs ever.)
No one would come to my house if I called if we didn’t have sheriffs. We are in an unincorporated portion of a county. County sheriff and state police is all we have. The State Police are not involved in local law enforcement (typically).
Sheriff’s Departments vary by state. But overall, I do believe they are a largely archaic thing that could be phased out. Duties and the non-elected officers could transfer over to the Judiciary and/or Police.
@Procrustus, In New Jersey, the State Police do cover the few rural areas we have left. But we’re a small over-developed state.
ISTM then you should pay for the sheriff. You want a low tax rate in an unincorporated area then you need to pay for your own police. I pay for mine.
In rural locations they’re typically the ‘only game in town’. I don’t see how they could easily be dispensed with.
Not so much.
Incorporated cities can raise taxes to fund local police. Unincorporated rural areas, such as the one I live in, have only county level protection: Sheriffs’ departments. There isn’t a large enough tax base in rural areas to support individual police departments without tax help from countywide levies.
State police are primarily responsible for road enforcement and rarely involved in investigating other crimes.
All these agencies frequently help each other out and will respond together for emergencies, but their various jurisdictions are very clear.
I’m quite sure my taxes do fund the county’s sheriff’s office.
PS: I don’t live here for low taxes. They’re not even that low by Washington standards.
Sure.
But my taxes also pay for the sheriff who does pretty much nothing for me and I also pay for the police who do.
I’d rather not pay for the sheriff who, for me and others in my city, do nothing.
I pay for state, city and county police. I think I can cut out the county and nothing would change.
In some (most? all?) states, like Florida where I was a Deputy Sheriff, Sheriffs and their deputies are (state) constitutional offices, and have sole constitutional and statutory authority to perform certain duties.
Plus, as mentioned, in states like Florida with no townships and “highway patrol” statewide organizations, SOs are THE only responder for law enforcement services in unincorporated areas.
In our county (and I’m sure many others) the sheriff’s office runs the jail. If the local police want to lock someone up, that’s where they go. That’s $19 million out of a total budget of around $53 million. $18 million is for Patrol.
I’d be happy with a unified law enforcement for city and county matters. I’d rather not live in an area without law enforcement though. I’d also be willing to have the sheriff’s budget come primarily from taxes in the unincorporated parts of the county. But, that’s not entirely fair, as they provide court security (benefits you) as well as patrol the roads outside of the city (which you drive on from time to time) and a host of other activities that might benefit you to some extent.
I’ll keep this in mind the next time I’m contemplating a measure to increase my taxes for local schools, parks, libraries, etc., none of which I personally benefit from. I have always supported such measures in the past.
Over the past 40+ years, I’ve lived in unincorporated areas for which primary law enforcement responsibilities fell to county sheriffs. In the wealthy county where I lived in California, coverage was quite good. We even rated a sub station in my little unincorporated town.
Where I live now, coverage is so sparse and ill-funded that it is limited to a couple of deputies patrolling a fairly large county. We’ve been told to not even bother calling if there isn’t a life-threatening injury involved. If you call the Sheriff’s Office over the weekend, you’ll get a voice mail message system. They’ll call you back during regular business hours.
So you pretty much have your wish.
Here in Cook County, Illinois, there are a couple branches within the uniformed Sheriff’s Deputy ranks. There’s a big branch of corrections officers to run jails. 26th and California in Chicago is the most well known but there are others. Probatiin/parole officers are here, too. Then, there are the Court Deputies, sometimes called bailiffs who secure defendant prisoners, screen visitors, monitor premises, etc. They might accompany jurors during trial. There’s the Cook County Sheriff’s Police who are the cops in squad cars mostly patrolling unincorporated areas. The Investigators are detectives who might do follow up for cases at trial but may also do stings of their own. County did a lot of the vice stings around here for a long time.
Similarly, Connecticut has no sheriffs or any other form of government at the county level, though there are regional agencies and school districts that span multiple towns. There is a state police force that handles towns without their own. I don’t think there are any unincorporated areas.
It’s not my wish.
If you want better police protection then you and your neighbors can incorporate and fund a police department. It’s really on you. I’m all for having good police protection. I pay a lot for mine.
I have no problem paying higher taxes for better protection. But it’s not up to just me. Oregonians in general are resistant to increased taxes of any kind, and a majority of them kill virtually every effort.
I still think your notion to eliminate sheriffs is not a good solution.
AIUI, sheriffs are elected officials. City police departments are usually run by an appointee of the mayor and/or city council.
Same here. Not sure if it’s still true, but they used to be closed between 11pm and 7am. My wife and I vote to increase taxes all the time. It rarely happens since we are in a red county (barely, by about 1/4 mile)
I’m not sure what you mean by this, and I don’t think you do, either. County sheriff departments and their associated and subsidiary agencies often comprise many functions including operating jails and juvenile detention facilities, providing animal control services, staffing and performing search and rescue operations, inland waterway patrol, the county coroner’s office, court baliffs, parole officers, process servers, et cetera in addition to law enforcement which are important to people in unincorporated communities and rural areas not served by municipal agencies, and in many cities they supplement municipal services in many areas. Sheriff’s departments are not a part of the judiciary, and, except for the office of sheriff and sometimes coroners, are not elected officials. I don’t know what you think would take over these roles, or if they could just be dispensed with, but while there is plenty of discussion to be had about overpolicing, corruption and lack of standards in (typically underfunded) sheriff departments, et cetera, these agencies provide crucial services that are not “largely archaic” or ancillary.
While coastal New Jersey and the Deleware River region down to the Philadelphia metro region are pretty heavily developed, there is plenty of rural and unincorporated areas in New Jersey not served by any municipal law enforcement and pretty sparsely covered by the NJSP. Get off I-95 and go east anywhere south of Trenton and you’ll find it nicely bucolic quickly, and of course the massive Jersey Pine Barrens are almost wholly unserved by any law enforcement or other services.
This varies from state to state, but while the most public view of state-level law enforcement is highway patrol/state troopers who mostly patrol major highways, these agencies also have an investigative function which provides continuity of investigative authority for intrastate crimes that cross individual jurisdictions, and are often the key organization investigating things like financial crimes, serial rape/murder, child sexual abuse, et cetera that span multiple counties, as well as providing an oversight function for crimes committed by local and county law enforcement within the state, and provide security and protective services for senior state government officials and major facilities. But they are not generally first responders to any kind of non-vehicular local crime and are not typically constituted to respond in force to particular incidents.
Stranger
Ok…make those state department(s). No need for the police part. We have state and local police for the policing part.
It’s weird that things like juvie are a county thing and not a state thing.
The purpose of county-level public safety services (and government in general) is to try to ensure that there is well-distributed services that is representative of and accountable to the local populations they serve. A state-level service will naturally concentrate its services where they are needed most, even if it leaves rural populations underserved.
As has already been noted, state police departments are not constituted to be first responders to local law enforcement and public safety issues. Even if you reorganized existing sheriff departments under the banner of a state police and public safety agency, you’d end up with a less evenly distributed array of services, whereas county-level services are dedicated to their specific jurisdiction. To highlight one non-enforcement related public safety function, most volunteer search and rescue (SAR) organizations in the Intermountain and Pacific West are part of or affiliated with the local sheriff’s department. This provides SAR teams access to equipment, vehicles, training, communications and coordination, et cetera, that they wouldn’t have as standalone volunteer organizations, and would not be a focus for most state-wide agencies but are critical public services.
The notion that all services are covered by municipalities and state police is tacitly saying that anyone who doesn’t live in a city or in the narrow suburban corridors and sprawls adjacent to highways don’t matter or deserve responsible public safety services, which is just not reality as those who live in rural areas or have bothers to venture off of a major highway once in a while can attest to.
Stranger