Myself, I’m one of those who supports eliminating the elective office of Sherriff and turning the outfit into just another agency subordinate to the county government to provide support for Law Enforcement and courts.
Yeah, this varies enormously state by state. Also many incorporated cities and towns hire the LA County (and others) Sheriffs to do the policing. It is cheaper and more effective.
Yep
Not in California.
yep.
I think some here are basing their opinions on their state- which of course could be true - for that state.
Yep.
So do the residents of a county. And incorporated cities that choose to hire the Sheriffs dept.
Also in a large county with many small cities- do you really want criminals to escape over a city border and laugh at the police with no jurisdiction? Commit a crime in one small town, and live in another. (Yes, I know that when in “hot pursuit” they can cross those borders- but not when serving warrants, etc).
Rural? My unincorporated community is by no means rural. Suburban.
My taxes are no lower. Some county taxes are only for unincorporated areas. Mind you- in some cities in my county the taxes could be higher- or even lower.
Do you? Some county taxes are only for unincorporated areas.
Small towns have issues with owning their own police force.
Do you drive into the city from time to time? Then should you help pay for the city police department? Same argument.
That sounds like a straw man to me. Eliminating the Sheriff’s department doesn’t mean eliminating law enforcement, just delegating it to a different level.
This would be like paying for your city schools and also paying for county schools, but there are no county schools in the city.
The problem is it’s mostly not redundant. It’s not two overlapping systems that duplicate service, it’s two mostly (but not entirely) independent systems, but the city dweller is paying for both their own city police and the county sheriff that doesn’t serve the city. People in unincorporated areas are being subsidized by city residents.
So?
Sure.
Why? Is that conclusion somehow drawn from either of your statements above? Cities don’t need to provide water, sewer, schools, roads, building departments, or anything else to unincorporated areas. Why would they need to provide police and fire services to them?
Cities don’t collect taxes from unincorporated areas, but they do pay (partially) for the sheriffs.
My perspective is from Cincinnati. I suspect there’s perhaps too many state-to-state differences to make a general statement, but the case here is that county sheriffs have jurisdiction in incorporated and unincorporated areas, and they receive funding from both, but they do not serve incorporated areas, especially not Cincinnati proper. The only time you see them in the city is when they’re going to court. The court’s operations don’t have to necessarily be under the sheriff’s umbrella, and of course in specific incidents/operations they cooperate with other departments, but all departments do that. As a general rule though, they stick to their turf even though they should be everywhere.
Pretty sure I do. Especially since the vast majority of my county is incorporated (Cook County which includes Chicago).
That said, I am having a weirdly hard time trying to find the numbers on this. You’d think it should be easy to find how much a given public service costs and how it is funded but I’m not finding it on a quick search. I am willing to bet the info is out there but it should not be this hard to get it.
An incorporated town or city in the United States is a municipality that is incorporated under state law. An incorporated town will have elected officials, as differentiated from an unincorporated community, which exists only by tradition and does not have elected officials at the town level. In some states, civil townships may sometimes be called towns, but are generally not incorporated municipalities, but are administrative subdivisions and derive their authority from statute rather than from a charter. - SOURCE
Local governments? No. It’s County government headed up by elected County Commissioners (that the towns vote for as well, because they are located in the county). But of course all are regulated a bit differently, and can make up some of their own regulations. To a point.
We have a few City & Countys here in Colorado. The fact they they have both city police and county sheriffs is a good indicator that they are not duplicates of each other.
St. Louis isn’t in a county? This, I want to know about.
What do we help pay for? Emergency services for one. For both City and County. Schools for another for both city and county and State.
Another thing that county government does is record all of the legal transactions in the county. Be it in a town or unincorporated. If you want to find a legal transaction about the ownership of your property you go to the County (at least in Colorado). Marriage license? Go to the county for the records. This is the primary repository for all recorded document for the entire county.
The county government also appraises all properties in the county, be it in a town or unincorporated for tax reasons. If you want data, you go to the county.
St. Louis and Baltimore are “independent cities” that are not part of the county that surrounds them. Similarly, in Ohio, counties are divided into townships, but townships do not overlay (underlay?) cities. So when one (or several) municipalities incorporate over the entirety of a township, that township ceases to exist.
This is relevant to the sheriff discussion because it illustrates how services and jurisdictions may or may not overlap one another.
Maybe so, but considering what I said above, the funding may not align with the service territory. If all residents of a county (whether city or unincorporated) pay for the sheriff, but only unincorporated areas are served by the sheriff, then that’s an issue to be discussed and potentially changed.
Umm … enipla was stating that Denver is the largest City & County in Colorado as a followup to my post. And with their budget woes, they would definitely go with only one (either police or sheriff but not both) if they could.
I would assume then that the Denver sheriff and Denver police have very distinct and non-overlapping roles. In which case fine…someone needs to do prisoner transfers and process serving and all that stuff.
But, I know people who have been pulled over for speeding by a sheriff deputy. The sheriff is doing “normal” police stuff for people who do not want to pay for police.
